


Whatever Happens

by Catherine_Legein



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Acceptance, Agility, Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Antiheroes, Apocalypse, Apocalypse Prevented, Ass touching, Background Relationships, Blow Jobs, Boys In Love, But only for the plots sake, Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Relationship, Canon Related, Canon Universe, Cataclysmic powers, Choking, Comfort, Compensation, Depression, Disney Movies, Disney References, Disney Songs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, End of the World, End of the multiverse, F/M, Falling In Love, Family Loss, Family Reunion, Fan Soundtracks, First Love, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Friends Reunion, Frozen (Disney Movies) References, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Gun Control, Gun manipulation, Happy Ending, Heroes, Historical Figures, Historical Inaccuracy, Historical References, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Imaginary Casting, Imaginary season, Imagining a season 2, Implied/Referenced Sex, Kinks, Klave, Levitation, Life Partners, Living Together, Loss, Loss of Parent(s), Loss of Trust, Love Triangle, Love/Hate, Lovers Reunion, M/M, Magicians, Marvel - Freeform, Marvel Comics - Freeform, Masturbate, Masturbation, Mentions of Heroes - Freeform, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Mistakes, Monsters, Moving Out, Multiverse, Multiverses, Mutual Masturbation, Necromancy, Normal Life, Other, Other Couples, Own Ending, Pan Character, Parallel Universes, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon Fix-It, Pre-Apocalypse, Pseudo-History, Pseudo-Incest, References to Depression, Reunions, Revenge, Riding, Self-Acceptance, Sex, Siblings, Song - Freeform, Songs, Sorry Not Sorry, Soulmates, Soundtracks, Straight Characters, Straight Relationship, Strength, Superhuman, Superpowers, Telekinesis, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, Tentacle Monsters, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Treason, Trinity symbol, Triquetra, True Love, Wizards, World Travel, Yes I'm ambitious, You Have Been Warned, also a third imaginary season in here, but secondary ones, canon ships, casting, choke kink, corny disney songs, end of the universe, energy manipulation, fictional streets, fix, gay relationship, imagining a second season, implied depression, invented streets, magician, marvel mentions, multiuniverse, powers, progress - Freeform, reality altering, referenced roleplaying, settle down, siblings bonding, soundtrack, space travel, super strength, superpower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:07:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 194,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25211389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherine_Legein/pseuds/Catherine_Legein
Summary: **CURRENTLY EDITING; GRAMMAR MISTAKES**I decided to do this fanfic about a hypothetic Season 2 because I’m afraid of what might happen there. I’m not in the creators’ minds to suppose things more than I should, but I don’t want to get spoilers to get this work done or to watch even the trailer (which has already been released, but I’m not watching it; I hate trailers). I’m not doing this to pretend that things happen as I like, but I am truly worried about how Season 2 is delivered. Maybe it’s because Westworld (HBO) was my favorite series until its Season 2 also fucked it up most of the things done in it; it got more complicated and inexplicable than it should have been, which might also happen in the second season of TUA. I’ll stop talking. This is just our favorite dysfunctional family trying to fix up the mistakes they’ve done in their lifes and some twists that might also be cool.I’ve already finished publishing it and I’m really happy how it turned out to be. There are still some unresolved questions, but just to make you think! :D If you’re still thirsty, you can always read a brief Klave one-shot I have on my "Multi-Universe" work.Enjoy!
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves, Dave/Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves/Eudora Patch, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)/Original Female Character(s), Vanya Hargreeves/Original Character(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	1. 2x00: "Fly"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prologue | Song: "Phoenix", by Caitlin Russo and Chrissy Constanza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy reading this at least almost as much as I enjoyed writing it : 3

_You know you have crossed the line when your world falls down into pieces, when everything turns out just how it should not have been. You know you have hit rock bottom when you lose the things you thought you did not have, when you are the one that have turned everything down. Nevertheless, if I have learnt something from life is that it can be the most unfair thing ever or the most chances-granter, second opportunities. You could do it as well. If you have to fix things you have ruined, stop being lazy and fix it, do something. Make a difference. Our multiverse is full of ignorants; both you and I can compensate the mistakes we have done with other people... and with ourselves._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's saying this prologue?


	2. 2x01: "We Can Work it Out"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When are they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First episode | Song: "We Can Work it Out", by The Beatles

_Try to see it my way_

_Do I have to keep on talking ‘til I can’t go on?_

_While you see it your way_

_Run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone_

_We_ _can work it out_

_We can work it out_

**~~~**

Time travel leaves you dazed, bewildered.

It’s like riding a roller coaster, being in a giant washing machine and taking zip wires all at the same time and in just some seconds, depending on how much time you take long in the trip. Depending on the level of the energy source and the weight you carry.

In his case, the process lasts around twenty seconds and the weights are seven souls. And, just like that, taking each other’s hands and closing their eyes, they feel like they’re pulled by a strong string from the ceiling (the roller coaster, the washing machine, the zip wires) and they’re no longer in the Icarus Theater.

**~~~**

After the trip, the sensations of arriving are just as intense but different: it feels like landing on Earth from a space trip but without spaceship, then it feels like having drunk one hundred shots of Vodka and, at the end, you feel like the hangover, a terrible vertigo on the stomach which is the reason they want to throw up, but nothing ever gets out.

That’s what exactly happens to them.

They end up in mid air and, despite just being some mere inches from the green land of grass, it feels like they land on sharp rocks. Five doesn’t know how much time passes since they appeared in the middle of the air after time traveling to the past, some seconds or one hour, but when their asses and backs and legs suffer the consequences of the landing, they are dazed. Despite being relatively used to it, Five takes long too. He tightens his teeth and his body is trembling. He rubs the bridge of his nose and his temples. He checks out he’s breathing and that his heart is still beating. He carefully takes a deep breath and, when he lets it all out, Five is able to open his eyes.

Thank God. Luckily, the six of them are there with him and whole; there could have been incidents like one less leg. Or one less head. Unluckily, they are suffering from the same secondary effect Five himself suffered when he travelled back to 2019.

Five coughs and gulps through his dry throat. He breathes again and shakes the earth off his pants.

“Guys?”

They don’t answer, which, understandable. Five rubs his eyelids because there’s too much light on the blue sky. 

_It’s noon._

“Guys?” he asks again. He sees how a young (but adult) Luther has migraines combined with vertigo and how Ben wants to throw up, but he can’t. The others are still stunned on the grass, maybe with a drop in blood sugar. Vanya is still unconscious in Luther’s arms; his brother doesn’t move her away, though. Five watches as Allison shakes her head to clear her mind, gulps deep and opens her eyes. When she’s self-aware, she approaches where Vanya is and checks her out.

“She’s breathing.”

Five nods. Some seconds later, he’s able to look around.

There’s an infinite landscape with several mounds; it’s full of grass and a lot of trees from different tones of green, from lime green to dark green. There are a few white houses far away on some hills and a little stream. He can’t see any buildings or roads that describe the era or the place. Where are they?

 _When_ are they?

Just when Five is able to kneel on the grass in order to stand up, he hears some steps behind them. He and Klaus are the only ones who look at the people, in this case, a mother with a long, yellow, light dress with white dots that matches her yellow headband and the five-year-old kid with simple clothes and a _kippah_ on his dark hair.

_This is the 40s, the 50s or the 60s. And a Jewish neighborhood._

Just when the kid points at them, his siblings react. They have to get away and hide somewhere else.

The kid seems to ask something and the mother talks softly, so they can’t listen. Then, she looks at them with a simple smile and gets some steps closer. Diego has the urge to run away, but Luther glances at him. Running away immediately would make her suspect more, even when she steps closer and stops ten yards away.

“Typical from kids. Were you playing with fireworks? We saw some lights outside.” The woman crosses her arms, disappointed. Five keeps waiting. “Oh, these children... Would you like to go inside our house? We have medical supplies and cold water.”

The kid seems to like the idea of bringing more kids to his home and runs inside the three story-place. Luther (with Vanya on his arms) and Diego get to stand up. Klaus helps Ben.

“I don’t know...” Five murmurs. He looks at Luther, who nods. Five hisses, more tired than anything else. They would need help to recover, at least some hours, before sitting to decide which is their next move. “Okay.”

Allison and Five stand up and they all walk to the woman’s house carefully. Everything looks peaceful in this neighborhood. Ben is jumpy, but Klaus is there to hug his waist.

They get inside through the beautiful porch and see the entrance hall connected to the living room (on the left) and the kitchen (on the right). They look around for some seconds and, little by little, they sit on the couches. Well, they practically faint on the couches.

“I’ll bring some glasses of water with ice quickly.” And she goes forwards, in front of them, towards the kitchen. They analyze the place. It’s simple, with wooden figures, an old clock on the wall which indicates it’s half past midday and the wall is gray toned. The kitchen is similar but with very old equipment. Suddenly, Diego touches Five’s elbow and points at a big calendar in the kitchen, next to the microwave.

“Look. Guys.”

And they look.

 _Saturday. May the 17_ _th_ _. Spring._

_Year 1952._

Which is a lot to think about. What the hell are they going to do now?

The woman comes back quickly accompanied by six glasses of water with ice cubes on a tray, in which there’s another big pitcher with more water. Klaus takes his first and drinks it quickly. Allison follows and, at the end, Five himself.

“So...” The woman sits on a chair close to them and crosses her arms. Five is attentive. “Sorry. My name is Adah. You don’t have to tell me yours, of course.” They don’t know what to say. Five looks like he’s waiting for something. “You look scared. That’s what you get when you play with fire.”

“Tell me about it.” Allison hits Klaus’ arm because of his intervention. “What?”

“Miss,” Luther says carefully and sits in a better position. She looks at him, which makes him feel invaded. “we are kind of lost here. Where are we?”

“You’re in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.”

Klaus seems to whine. Ben doesn’t understand but tries to reassure him.

“Okay, thank you.” Luther tries to find other words. Or any conversation at all; that lady could call the authorities in case she suspected something weird, which, fair. “We were on a family trip. We started walking to find some wood and we got lost.”

“Oh, no!” Good thing she has ignored the fact that why are they wearing something elegant for a family trip. “Do you want to use the phone to call the authorities?”

_Shit. Think fast, think fast._

“We already got to call our parents.” Ben jumps in. Five is surprised by his intervention, if he’s being honest. Apart from Vanya, Ben was the one who got along well with him in their childhood, but Ben always used to prefer to be left aside, being subtle. Maybe things do change when your soul’s age triples the age of your body. “But they’re still camping outside the state, so they’ll take a long time coming to the police station from here. Then we’ll leave.”

“How long?”

“A couple of days, maybe.”

“Okay.” The woman seems to trust them. There’s a noise upstairs. How many people are in that place? Adah looks up at the ceiling. “Adam Hartman! Stop jumping on the bed with your toys!” The kid seems to stop jumping but keeps making noise. “Sorry. There’s a guest room upstairs for you all to rest.”

They follow Adah through the stairs filled with family photos of a strict but united family; apparently, Adah is a housewife and the father is a scientist. There are five doors on the second floor and God knows how many more on the third floor. One of them is the bathroom, whose door is closed right now. Adah leads them to the last door on the left. It’s a big bedroom with three individual beds in front of the entrance, where there’s also a big window that harbors a beautiful, green landscape behind the glass. There’s a big closet on the left and two desks on the right. There are also some weird pictures of the religion on the four walls.

Luther leaves Vanya on the bed in the center of the window and opens it. Allison gets closer and covers her with thin sheets (it’s getting hot, but she’s shivering). Diego practically faints again on the bed on the right and Ben and Klaus sit on the other bed’s edge. In this room, the noises made by little Adam feel clearly closer.

“Please,” the woman says. “if you need supplies or if you faint or anything similar, just warn me quickly. I’ll be on the first floor cooking lunch.”

Just as Adah disappears behind the closed door, everyone breathes. Five sits down next to Diego. It’s _weird_ seeing them young. It doesn’t feel any better, to be honest.

“Okay, what do we do?”

Five sighs, looking through the window.

“What I said earlier. We have to wait until Vanya wakes up, we talk things and we try to make her feel at home so that the apocalypse doesn’t happen again.”

“Make her feel like home...” Allison frowns, stroking her sister’s cheek from her place on the same bed. “Like most families do.”

“Excuse me,” Diego sits up on the bed. “I remember you didn’t make her feel like home either.”

“But when I realized, I tried to make things right.” Allison responds. “To talk things. You didn’t want to talk with Vanya when she was over-exploding her powers.”

“Luther had that idea, technically.”

“Stop!” Luther stands up. “If we are trying to make things right, we are not doing that right now. Let’s wait until she wakes up and we try to talk.”

There’s a big silence. Ben suddenly covers his mouth, stands up and pukes in a clothes bucket that was luckily empty. Weird. Everyone is shocked, but the only ones who react are Klaus, who strokes Ben’s back, and Five.

“Did you just vomit?” he asks. Ben just groans, cleans his mouth and lies on the bed. The vertigo is coming back. He’s hot and cold at the same time.

“I guess...”

“But you’re... dead?”

Klaus seems to understand. He touches Ben’s neck, looking for a pulse. Then, he opens his eyes widely, shocked again. He can’t believe this.

“My... God!” Everyone looks at a dizzy Ben, who looks unsurprised but careful with his current state of existence. He doesn’t want to rush. “Benny!”

Everyone gets a little bit closer to him, but that just makes him feel dizzier, so they give him space.

“Guys, I don’t want more things to make me more confused than I already am.” He gulps deep. “I need space.”

They end up leaving Ben and Vanya resting. The others go to the living room and keep drinking water, watching how Adah cooks. Especially Diego, who just stares.

“It reminds you.” Luther says. He doesn’t seem to understand. “About mom.”

Diego bows his head and frowns.

“Kind of. Yeah...”

Luther isn’t the kindest person in the world, but he does support. _Sometimes_ , he thinks. You don’t know how much pain you have caused until the end is near. What is he going to do with Vanya? She’s probably going to be distant from him as much as possible, which, fair. The only thing he can do right now is enduring the blame and supporting Vanya, even if she doesn’t want to.

Her powers are utterly scary, but that doesn’t mean Vanya is. I mean, if they were scared some moments earlier before coming to the past, he can’t even begin to imagine how terrified she must have felt when he locked her in the Academy’s vault. Luther gulps and drinks water. Even if it’s hard, it’s not the best time for whining over the guilt you feel. There will be plenty of time for that when they help Vanya. How are they going to do that if they can’t understand what she is? Vanya doesn’t even know what she is, she just felt so outraged for being attacked in the concert they didn’t want to go that she exploded, not figuratively.

Minutes later, Ben goes downstairs with a zombie face but with less eye-bags.

“Are you okay?” Allison asks him. He just nods and sits next to Klaus. “And Vanya?”

“Sleeping like a rock.” Ben answers and looks at Klaus, who’s glancing at him with amusement. He can’t believe his Benny-boy is _alive_ again. He changes his expression when Ben gets more serious, though. “Hey, what happened to you earlier?”

Klaus lifts an eyebrow.

“Which earlier? When I made you go _whoosh-whoosh_ in the theater or when we landed?”

“No! Idiot.” Ben has to contain himself, but Klaus chuckles. “No, when Adah said we are in Pennsylvania.”

Klaus’ smirk disappears and lowers his head.

“I...”

“You don’t have to tell me now. But soon, okay?”

Klaus smiles with honesty, without sarcasm, taunt or just to derail the conversation. Man, what would he do without Ben even if he’s a ghost, which now is not?

“So...” he diverts the conversation. “You’re _alive_?”

“I guess.” he answers. He’s surprised now that he thinks about it. He’s surprised, but somehow disappointed. “I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean, why?”

“Because you didn’t die in 1952.” Five intervenes. They look at him. “Your body wasn’t _killed_ this year and your soul was with us when we’ve come here. So, you’re alive.” Five almost smiles, but Klaus can read through his face. Five likes to think of himself as an ambitious enigma, but he’s human, like the rest of them. He’s uncertain about the future, but Five will eventually have to settle down or some shit like that. Klaus can’t imagine a normal life for him. Would he stay home? He can’t work being thirteen.

“Welcome home, Ben. Welcome home.”

Five thinks about it. Depending on what they do now, what if it involves time travelling to the future, after the year Ben died? He still lives or he will be dead again?

**~~~**

Her siblings leave the bedroom, so Vanya immediately opens her eyes. She was conscious as soon as they landed in 1952 and she has heard all about what happened: traveling back to help her this time for real. She feels different and that has never felt more awful. She wanted to be different. Wait, did she really want to be different? She just wanted to have a power in order to be on a mission at least once, to feel included in her own family. Now that she knew her father knew she had such cataclysmic abilities, it’s understandable that he tried to keep her away without knowing she was special too. It’s unfair to the limit and cruel but understandable.

Vanya rubs her eyelids and looks down at herself. Her clothes are the same as they used as kids in the Academy. She touches her face. She’s young again, they’re all young again. How the hell do her siblings cope so well with that aspect of time travel? Maybe they’re not. They’re probably as scared as her, but they just are better at keeping calm. Not like her. That’s why she exploded like a time bomb. She knows she destroyed something. At least, the Moon because she was pointing at its direction. At the most, the entire world, that’s why they must have run away with her.

Vanya wants to cry and curl up in a corner forever. Her siblings have talked about how to help her, but are they willing to make that step they couldn’t do in their childhood?

Is _she_ willing to do that? Trust them after everything?

Maybe. But not now. Not when she destroyed the world just some minutes ago.

Vanya waits until Ben is able to stand up and leave. Then, she silently stands up and takes off her shoes. She slowly walks to the door and opens it. Vanya looks around. There isn’t anyone on that floor except for a kid that’s making noise. The others must be downstairs. She goes to the bathroom and closes the door before locking it. She looks at herself in the mirror; straight, long, messy hair falling down her shoulders, bangs.

Just a few hours earlier, she was an adult imprisoned by her own brother and that escaped out of a vault. Now she is seeing the same reflection she saw in the cage. Vanya tightens her eyelids and leans over the sink just as a few tears wet her cheeks.

She looks at herself in the mirror, crying. She surprises herself because, normally, Vanya would have felt ashamed of seeing herself crying in front of the mirror. But getting things off your chest is actually helpful, especially after destroying the world. Nevertheless, she needs some alone time. Her siblings want to talk to her as soon as she wakes up, but she doesn’t want to feel overwhelmed. She wants to think about what she is right now, what her powers are.

Because, no, what fucking Leonard Peabody told her about her powers read in her father’s diary is not valid, no matter how much their dad knew about them.

Vanya cleans her face, breathes deeply and looks around. She puts her shoes on again, gets on the bath and looks through the open window of the bathroom. It’s not big, but enough. She takes some seconds long, but, when she enters her feet and her arms, then, the rest is easy. She carefully and clumsily slides down a water pipe of the wall of the house, crosses the garden and disappears in the green forest.

**~~~**

Around 1 pm, the rest looks at Diego when he runs towards them from upstairs.

“Vanya’s gone.”

“Shit!” Ben exclaims with a cupcake in his mouth.

**~~~**

After peeing and washing themselves, they explain to Adah clumsily that they need to search for their sister. Adah lets them go, but not before she prepares them a meatball sandwich in case they’re hungry and they keep it in some bags. And even in the middle of danger, Diego thinks about their mother.

They reunite on the porch.

“Okay.” Five says. They don’t have much to use, just the sandwich, water, matches and some bandages. “Somebody has to stay here in case she returns.”

“Me,” Allison says. “it’s getting hot, I want to be here to help her if she returns earlier than we expect.”

Diego shrugs.

“Me too.”

“No.” Five insists. “I’ll stay here.” And before Diego can protest, Five explains. “If she returns here I can search for you around and if I’m not here you will take too long coming back.”

“Five, maybe she hasn’t even gone too far.” Luther suggests.

“I don’t think so.” Allison whispers. “Let’s look for her, whether she’s near or far.”

Five nods.

“I stay here with Allison. Diego, you’re going northward with Luther.”

Diego wrinkles his nose and Luther rolls his eyes. Some things never change.

“Why...?”

“Because I say so.” He turns to Ben and Klaus, who nod. “Okay. You both go to the south.”

“Woody and Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!” Klaus claims.

“I prefer to be Mario and Luigi.”

“Mario sucks, every kid on the streets liked Mario, but I’ve always liked Yoshi.”

Five sighs. Ben and Klaus’ dynamic is beautiful and incomprehensible at the same time.

“Let’s go. Don’t get close to houses and don’t talk to people. _Don’t_ approach them.”

**_[“Puttin’ On the Ritz”, Fred Astaire]_ **

_Now, if you’re blue_

_And you don’t know where to go to_

_Why don’t you go where fashion sits_

_Puttin’ on the Ritz_

_Different types who wear a day coat_

_Pants with stripes and cutaway coat_

_Puttin’ on the Ritz_

**~~~**

They walk in silence at the beginning, the first thirty minutes, but, as ever, silence breaks easily, especially when we’re talking about _Woody_ and _Buzz Lightyear_.

“Are you sure you know how to guide ourselves with the Sun, Benny?” Klaus asks, playing with his dark jacket, which he took off minutes earlier because of the heat. Ben remains with his, he has always been cold-natured.

“I’m not _sure_ , but I do know more than you.”

“Woah!” the other exclaims and Ben glances at him, frowning, for screaming. Luckily, they don’t see more houses around that zone and they’re well submerged in the forest. “In my defense, I was unable to study geography when we were teenagers.”

“Because you were high.” his brother assumes.

“Maybe.” he shrugs. “But maybe more because geography is boring.”

“It’s not boring.” Ben can’t handle it anymore and takes off his jacket too. “The study of maps and minerals and rocks is pretty interesting.”

“Benny!” Klaus frowns, pretending to be offended. “Geography is not the same thing as geology!”

“How do you know? You didn’t study geography!”

They pretend to be serious when they’re laughing their asses off. Later, they keep walking for what feels another half of an hour. But maybe more. Ben looks at him. Klaus looks worried and spaced out, something he usually does when he tries to avoid something, whether it’s a conversation or just a feeling. It could be both sometimes.

“Hey.” His brother looks at him. “You wanna talk?”

“Want? No. But I do need it.” he sighs. “Ask away.”

Ben tries to use the right words, he doesn’t want to make him upset, not right now.

“Why were you sensitive when Adah told us about Pennsylvania?”

Klaus thinks. He doesn’t think about the answer, he just thinks. Ben can tell he’s spacing out again. Seconds pass and Klaus is able to talk without breaking down. There’s no time for that.

“Dave was from Pennsylvania.”

Ben remembers the whole story between them or, at least, what his brother has told him so far. He doesn’t want to press into telling him more.

“Oh, right.” he just says. “But... it’s 1952, maybe he’s...”

“I don’t think so. No, no.” Klaus shakes his head. It’s like he doesn’t want to think about Dave because there are things that matter more than his problems. That, or just thinking about something else will keep his emotion of loss dulled. Like drugs. “No, no. He was born in Erie and Erie is way upstate, we’re close to Philadelphia, in the south. I don’t want to get away for days just to meet a younger version of him if it’s not him, not the one I did meet.” he says with teary eyes, but he gets through it. Ben keeps listening. “I’m not doing it. That...”

“... would be selfish?” Ben finishes. Klaus nods. “Thinking about yourself it’s not selfish. We have better things to do and, no, don’t even _think_ about going to look for Dave, but promise me you’ll solve your problems when we fix it all up, okay?”

Klaus smiles and nods.

What he said. What would he do without Benny?

**~~~**

Five and Allison are in an eternal silence; he’s standing and she’s sitting. They haven’t ever hated each other or in constant arguments, like Diego and Luther, but they haven’t really been that close, like _Mario_ and _Luigi_. In their childhood, Five liked to be with Vanya, talking to her about science because she always listened while playing her violin or he went to Ben and talked about the few movies they used to watch when Reginald let them to, but Allison? He’s not sure about having memorable moments.

“What are we going to do?” Allison says and he looks at her. “About Vanya?”

Five grinds his teeth for some seconds. He doesn’t want to explode and accuse people here and there just like that, the blame is on all of them. He knows that he wasn’t close with Vanya as much as _Mario and Luigi_ , but the situation is unnerving in general. 

“Funny.” he just says. Allison doesn’t understand. Sometimes it’s not hard to forget that they look young again and they look more vulnerable, but Five is the one more used with his body, so it’s easier to throw something into somebody’s face. “Funny _you_ say that.”

“Why?” she asks standing up from her chair on the porch.

“On our way to the Icarus, you told me that you rumored Vanya to believe she didn’t have powers.”

Allison is astonished. Really? Now?

“There isn’t _any_ minute I don’t feel _terrible_ about that and-”

“And, besides, what did you try to do before she slit your throat? Oh, right, using your powers in the right exact moment. How well thought.”

“You also all tried to attack her in the theater instead of talking things!”

“There wasn’t time to talk, Allison! Wake up!”

“How can you be so stubborn!?”

Five is about to counterattack, but there’s a sound on the entrance. The kid is looking at them with attentive eyes.

“You argue like my parents.”

Five and Allison relax. They don’t know what’s worse, whether they realize they _are_ adults inside those young bodies or the fact that the kid’s parents argue frequently. Luckily, they guess his father is out of town for some time because the wife looked calm and the son looks joyful, playing. The perfect family pictures are fake.

“Sorry.” Allison tells the kid with a reassuring smile. “We’ll stop, okay?”

“Okay! I’ll tell my mom to prepare lemon juice for everyone!”

He disappears where he got out.

“You’re a good mother, Allison.” Five says and she’s surprised. Her brother is really unpredictable. “I hope we can fix things up. Despite manipulating your own child even, you’re a good mother.”

Allison almost laughs. He somehow knows about that too. It’s amazingly curious how Five seems sometimes coldly affectionate in his own way.

“Thank you?”

Five wants to tell her that this conversation is not enough to redeem her, but he’s tired of arguing. Now they have to be a team, so he keeps as an oath to postpone these kinds of conversations.

**~~~**

If the conversation between Allison and Five was uncomfortable, between Luther and Diego that falls short. They basically prefer not to talk instead of arguing in the worst moment possible. It’s curious, even funny. Even being an adult inside the body of a teenager, Luther still has a punchable face.

They keep walking north thanks to Diego’s abilities in direction for like more than one hour. Luther tries to look around at all directions in case they see something weird and Diego eats the sandwich. Well, just the bread part. The sauce has too many calories. His body is young again, but that doesn’t mean he wants to ruin it. The bad thing is that the meatballs have made the bread hot and the weather is already hot itself. There’s zero wind in this zone. Pennsylvania is close to the coast and rather in the north of the country, but it seems like the weather has chosen to be different today, hotter and drier than usual.

“Look, Diego!”

He looks up and there’s a whirl of wind inside a circle of trees and bushes. They glance at each other and walk quickly to that direction. Diego is the one who gets closer, looks among all of the leaves and spies inside.

A small breeze with the shape of a tiny tornado surrounds the young body of Vanya, whose eyes are closed, her body is in a meditation position and her hair is flowing along the wind. She’s not hurting herself or hurting the nature around here. White energy doesn’t even appear, so that means it’s okay at the moment.

Diego gets inside, Vanya snaps and drags her body backwards on the floor.

“It’s okay! It’s okay.” he whispers calmly, even if the wind around vanishes. Vanya stays still but doesn’t get closer either. Her breath is superficial, fast. “I’m not getting closer. I’m just... sitting down.” Diego sits on the grass and crosses his legs trying to dedicate her a reassuring look. He hasn’t really been one that’s good at comforting people in difficult situations, not even as an adult. “I’m here. We’re here for you.” Vanya’s eyes are teary, but she stifles the situation. At least, her breath is now better. He decides to do something else. He takes out the rest of his sandwich from the small bag Adah gave them and puts it between them inside the small box. “Take it.”

Vanya looks up and their eyes meet.

“You’re not hungry?”

“I am. But that doesn’t matter now.”

Vanya’s face is shocking. She’s being shown kindness in the right moment. He should have stopped Luther from both of them to attack her in the concert. At least, Vanya takes the sandwich and eats it quickly. It’s okay now, but she needs the rest of them. She needs her sister as well.

Vanya finishes the sandwich and takes Diego’s hand by herself. _We were going to talk about this sooner or later_ , she thinks. They stand up together slowly and get out of the trees. However, Vanya drops his hand when she sees Luther, who stays still. Diego tries to stand in the middle, just in case.

“It’s okay!”

Vanya looks down.

“No. It’s not okay.”

Luther feels awful, but he knows he won’t get any apology right now. It will take a lot of time, showing support, not just by saying sorry once and over again. It doesn’t have an immediate solution. Diego decides to walk in the middle of them when they start heading back to the Hartman’s.

**_[“Blue Moon”, Billie Holiday]_ **

_Blue moon you saw me standing alone_

_Without a dream in my heart_

_Without a love of my own_

_Blue moon, you knew just what I was there for_

_You heard me saying a prayer for_

**~~~**

“I think we are lost.”

Ben growls.

“No, we’re not.” he says. “And even if we were, it wasn’t necessarily compulsory to search for Vanya in the south _exactly_. We have to search around as much as possible.”

Klaus shakes his head with sarcasm.

“Right.”

They keep walking for some minutes. They already can hear Five’s sentences, like _that’s not how you follow directions with the Sun_ or _stop going south if you don’t even know you’re going south._ Time passes, various minutes, even some hours and the Sun is lower. It can be a little bit later than 6 pm. This feels useless.

Then, Ben stops and Klaus stops with him. They’re in the middle of a prairie just a little higher than the rest of the landscape. There are a lot fewer trees and crops zones start to appear. There’s a corn crop some yards away from them.

Ben grinds his teeth.

“We are lost.”

“Called it!”

They curl up under the shadow of a small bush and rest. They ate their sandwiches two hours ago.

“Agh, dude, I didn’t remember feeling alive is exhausting.”

“You don’t say.” Klaus laughs. It’s great to have his brother back. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen in their close future, not even what they’re going to do to solve everything, but, at least, he has this moment. He still feels like shit after losing the love of his life, Pogo and his mother, but, at least, he has this moment with his brother.

“Hey, Klaus, look.”

They both see an old, white barn some yards in front of them. It’s located in the middle of a prairie too, but it’s rounded by an infinite wooden fence with no visible beginning or end, so it must be private property, like from a house with an owner.

“What about it?”

“Maybe they can let us go through their prairie instead of rounding their fence.” he answers. Klaus huffs. “Or maybe we could go back.”

Or maybe they could go on. They haven’t even found a trace of Vanya and they don’t even know where they are. They could have even crossed down to Maryland.

“We could ask in which part of Pennsylvania are we and how far it’s Elizabethtown.”

Ben and Klaus stand up, keep walking under the Sun and bump into the fence. They find a hole they can get in through and, then, about ten yards away from the fence, they are in front of the big entrance of the barn. It’s kind of spooky.

“I’ll go alone.” Ben suggests. “One homeless teenager makes adults feel sadder than two.”

“Just say you want to get rid of me!” Klaus makes his brother contain a laugh. “I’ll wait here.”

So, he waits there. Luckily, there’s a little bit of shadow around there with the height of the old barn. He doesn’t try to think too much. On their way to the south, he also told Ben how time travel affected their aspects and clothes. Meaning this.

No tattoo. No dog tags.

Just when Klaus is about to break down he listens to a metallic noise and, then, out of nowhere, someone fires at his ankle and makes him scream loud. The pain feels from both of his feet to the top of his head, so he quickly falls to the sand of the private property while they keep firing at where he is. Damn, where did they really get inside of? They didn’t even know it was the house of somebody, maybe the siblings are being pursued by God knows who and they found him alone to eliminate him or maybe he has just entered a shooting area for practising or a hunting zone.

Klaus doesn’t have more time to think and he just crawls on the sand with his bleeding foot and ends up between two big sacks of hay. He breaks down. He covers his ears and closes his eyes waiting for it to end, just like when he was a kid in the mausoleum. Who’s firing at him? Are they only firing at him or do they think he’s with more people? Are they the guys from the Commission, which was trying to kill them? Is that even possible?

Suddenly, he feels as someone takes his arm with strength, makes him stand up and that person pulls from him. He doesn’t have time to think, he just lets himself be rescued by the person. Somehow, they both get out of the fence and end up on the previous green prairie some yards away from the barn. Klaus gets to stand up with one feet, dry the tears from his face and have a normal breathing once more. His stomach hurts from crying, so he strokes his belly bending a little and pointing his head at the ground. He puffs. He takes some minutes to recover.

“Are you okay?” the voice asks worried. It’s not Ben.

Klaus opens his eyelids and, in front of him, there’s a grown teenager at least two or three years older than him (than his body). He has a medium skin tone but fair light; he has dark blond hair and blue eyes. Klaus can’t stand anymore and falls to the ground. The boy worries and kneels next to him, closer. His features are strong, just as his muscles for someone his age and curly hair. He’s really pretty, even _beautiful._

“You need to be healed. Let’s go to my house. It’s five minutes away.”

The boy takes his shoulder strongly and they both walk clumsily until he makes Klaus seat on a rock under the shadow of a short tree. The boy sits close and still holds him.

“What’s your name?”

Klaus can hear Five saying _we weren’t born in this year, don’t ever tell your name to strangers_.

“I’m, J-John.”

The boy smiles sweetly. Klaus shivers with a pit in his stomach. He has only seen that _smile_ once in his life, a smile as simple as others but unique from the rest.

“I’m David.”

**_[“Raining in My Heart”, Buddy Holly]_ **

_The sun is out, the sky is blue_

_There’s not a cloud to spoil the view_

_But it’s raining, raining in my heart_

_The weatherman says clear today_

_He doesn’t know you’ve gone away_

_And it’s raining, raining in my heart_

**~~~**

Diego is still between Vanya and Luther. Somehow, the silence among them doesn’t feel as heavy as it did with Luther alone, maybe because on their way out they were on edge and now that they’re coming back to Adah’s house, everything is relatively calmer. They walk at the same pace, always in the middle. Diego has always been a fighter and a person who jumps at everything, he immediately jumps into action and does whatever he has to do, no matter what. If supporting their sister this time for real means danger, he’s doing it. His guilt towards Vanya is not as hard as Allison’s, but it’s still there. However, he’s not doing this for pity or guilt, because it’s what families are supposed to do. About Allison... he’s not sure.

They get out of the forest and enter the prairie where Adah’s house is.

“I’m getting dizzy...” Vanya says, stroking an eyelid.

“You need fresh water,” Diego says. “let’s hurry.”

They get closer with a faster rhythm. Right on the porch Five is sitting on a chair but stands up the second he sees three people instead of two. Then, Allison comes out through the entrance door, stays still and, then, runs towards her sister too fast. _Too fast_ , thinks Diego. Diego tries to get in the way between the two females.

“Wait!”

It’s too late; Vanya is scared by Allison getting too close and an invisible wave expands around her body. The hit of energy is not too hard; Luther, Diego and Allison roll over the air and the grass. They hit the ground. They recover just in a matter of seconds because it’s easy compared to recovering from the time travel of this morning. Diego frowns at Allison but doesn’t say anything.

Vanya curls up on the floor and buries her face on her knees.

“No, no, no, not again...” she mutters once and again.

Just when she starts to sob, Allison shakes the dust off her clothes (just like when they landed a few hours ago) and gets close enough for her sister to notice she’s there. And that she will always be.

“It’s okay!” she reassures. “It’s okay. We’re not hurt.” Allison touches her knees and this time Vanya doesn’t snap. “We’re here. We’re here for you now, this time.”

 _This time_ , Luther thinks to himself. He bites his lips and gets close. Yes, he fucked up a lot of things in the past and in a not-so-recent past. But now they’re all there for her.

“We are.” Luther says out loud but without touching her sister. Vanya glances at him.

_The powers. The choke that drove you into unconsciousness. The vault. The other attempt of attacking you to stop you._

Vanya grinds her teeth and closes her eyes. She looks at her sister again. Luther knows that it will take more than just a few reassuring words to make her trust him again... if she ever trusted him.

“Come on,” Allison says and helps her stand up. “you must be hungry and thirsty. Adah’s pot roast is delicious.”

_Adah. How much she looks like Grace. You killed Grace too._

Vanya’s hunger is stronger than her breakdown. She stands up with her siblings and goes inside, everyone together. Next to the stairs there’s the dining room, where Adah and her son are eating the dessert of the meal. The woman stands up as they arrive.

“Rose! You’re okay. They found you.” she says and looks at all of them. Five and Allison invented fake names for everyone. Diego will be mad when he finds out his fake name is _Juanito_. “Where are the eccentric and the quiet one?”

Oh, right. They don’t know they have found Vanya. They ask Adah for a private moment and she leaves with her son but not before serving them the same snack and the pot roast for Vanya.

“How do we find Klaus and Ben?” Diego asks, enjoying fruits.

“They went southward, so we go in that direction.” Five states, not hopeful that his two brothers could follow directions properly. Five grinds his teeth because he knows they both got lost, which makes him unable to teleport to the south if they aren’t even in the south. “We’ll be away from each other some yards but enough to see each other while we’re searching for them. Okay?”

They all nod. It’s almost 7 pm, so they have to be fast if they don’t want the sky to get darker. What must be Ben doing? What must be Klaus doing?

**~~~**

“You good? You need to rest?”

“No, I’m okay.”

But Klaus is not okay. He’s hanging by a thread. Apart from the very painful left ankle that’s still bleeding (now less than before thanks to the tourniquet the young boy prepared; he used the bandages Adah put in Klaus’ bag and a stick around there), there’s also a very high probability that the young boy holding his shoulders right now is Dave. It’s just like him, but younger and more innocent (wars do really kill innocence). Is he? Is he his Dave?

It was also common sense that, yeah, he was born in the north of the state, but his family could have moved into the south when he was younger where they could be close to the capital. However, when does Klaus use common sense?

Luckily, the way to the boy’s house is not long; like he said moments earlier, just five or ten minutes. When they enter a new neighborhood with detached houses it only takes them two minutes until David makes him sit on a bench of the path of land that divides houses; at least, there aren’t any vehicles until now. The pain of the foot is unbearable, so David looks at him, making sure he’s okay. His attentive eyes feel like heaven. 

“I’ll be right back. I’ll bring a crutch for you.”

The boy turns around, runs towards a house some yards away and gets inside through the door. Klaus huffs and rests the back of his head on the headboard. He waits some seconds. There are some short trees and bushes displayed on both sides of the wide path. There are dark curtains that cover the conservative houses and all of these are white. There are also small, metallic mailboxes with the shape of a box of shoes that displays family names: Adell, Aronowitz, Zagorski, Zeff, Sahlberg... and the names continue.

Klaus frowns. He looks around the house that David got in and looks for the mailbox. He has to stand up to see the family name.

_Katz._

Klaus opens his mouth, his heart full of both excitement and desperation. He didn’t know those two feelings could co-exist inside of anyone, but they can... and they do.

“Dave!”

The ankle makes its job and forces him to fall to the ground. Some of the little stones of the sand get inside of his left eye and hurt his face and his arm. That hurt, but not as much as his heart right now. He chuckles and cries at the same time. It’s the same as before: he’s hanging by a thread.

He hears quick footsteps towards him and _Dave_ takes his arms with one hand and the other has the wooden crutch. The skin on skin contact feels like heaven as well. 

“What happened, are you fine?” and the worry in his voice makes him _so_ soft.

“I... I’m dizzy.”

Dave waits no more. He gives him the crutch and they go inside slowly. Dave’s house feels colder and more overwhelming than Adah’s, but it’s way bigger and more well-off. Adult Dave told him that he didn’t like being at his house. He preferred to go out and see the world, but at the same time he wanted to settle down in a comfortable house when _they_ were out of Vietnam.

Which never happened.

That realization feels like a sting on Klaus’ heart, but his thoughts are cut when young Dave drives him to a dining room and makes him sit on a chair. Dave leaves the crutch on the table and goes to the kitchen to make him a better dressing for the wound and returns, kneeling in front of his chair. Klaus looks around while being treated. There are more photos than in Adah’s house, but these ones have a more serious family and most of them are in the same position: same three faces, same postures, same places. Adult Dave told him that he had no siblings, but he used to be bonded with his cousins before going to Vietnam and losing contact.

God. What is Klaus doing?

 _You shouldn’t be here, you shouldn’t. Don’t try something stupid. Don’t do it. You should be back with us,_ he hears Five’s voice.

Klaus frowns. Why does he have to attribute the voice of the reason to Five, when he doesn’t know about his situation? Yes, Five spending decades alone is horrible, especially after watching your siblings dead on the ground. But this is different. Five hasn’t fallen in love so far. This is his story. And despite this Dave hasn’t met adult Klaus yet, he will someday.

The proper bandage for his hurt ankle is finished. After returning from the kitchen, Dave comes back and leaves a glass of water in front of him. Klaus drinks a little bit as Dave sits close in front of his chair. It feels _odd_ , just like having Ben alive again.

“Okay. What happened?” he asks calmly and curious, reverent. “Why were you in that barn?”

Klaus smiles.

“Why were _you_ in that barn?”

Dave is surprised by the comeback.

“I always come near that place to see how my father practices shooting with his squad.”

Right, now it makes sense that Dave must have heard him scream when he was shot and, of course, that was a shooting zone for soldiers. At least, they weren’t those scary dudes from the Commission. Dave’s father, Ismael, was also a soldier, but he never got to be in an entire war. Ismael only fought in various battles along Iraq. That’s the only thing he knew about his father-in-law, Dave didn’t want to talk much about him. And about his mother-in-law... nothing. Just that she was more distant than his father.

“... is anyone here?”

“You haven’t told me how you ended up near that barn, John.”

Now Klaus is surprised by the comeback. One of the many things he _adored_ about adult Dave is that he always continued his jokes and taunts. Guess that some things never change. Some aspects of the personality do change, like innocence and capability of making decisions, but the rest remains the same.

Klaus bows his head. _Don’t do something stupid with him. It’s not your Dave. He’s just barely an adult._

“I was trying to look for someone, but I got lost.” He doesn’t mention Ben or Vanya, just in case. “Are we alone?”

“My parents always go to the synagogue after my father finishes his training. They’ll be back around ten or eleven.”

Klaus yawns. He’s tired. It’s only been a couple of hours since the world ended. The apocalypse is exhausting. Meeting the younger version of a loved one is exhausting.

“Okay. I just... I need to rest some hours before I walk alone and... get back with my family.”

Dave seems to understand.

“Do you already wanna have dinner with me?”

And, of course, Klaus nods.

**~~~**

The rest of the siblings keep walking south because that’s where Klaus and Ben were supposed to go. At least, there’s less Sun now than in the morning. It’s close to 8 pm and they haven’t found traces of the two brothers. Due to the fact that Diego and Five are better at orientation, they actually go south and end up in a bar aside from a path; there are barely one or two houses at some yards of distance. The Sun is going down little by little and there are just a few people in the place: two men playing darts and a group of younger men talking about stuff.

Of course, Five tries to order a beer, but he’s denied. He reluctantly accepts a glass of lemon juice. Then, they realize.

“How are we going to pay for this?” Luther asks. The others keep quiet.

“Adah gave us money on the boxes.” Diego answers.

 _Wow. Adah is like Grace._ But not to Diego now that he thinks about it. Grace was different. She was supposed to be a robot, but she was something else. That makes him think that... Does Grace have a ghost in the afterlife if she’s a robot? If she _was_ a robot?

They ramble about anything and everything. They ask Vanya how she is doing but not too much in case she feels overwhelmed. At least, she’s eating well; again, she’s eating the cheapest thing in the menu: chips with nothing.

It’s getting late and they should really continue their search. Five can teleport to other locations and, then, return to the others to warn if he saw something or not, but he’s still exhausted since they landed in the past. They start considering spending a night at Adah’s, even days if it’s necessary like they originally told her. However, it’s dangerous if too much time passes. How is the Commission without their chief? Is she _really_ gone? Because she was in 2019 when the world was destroyed. Five doesn’t know if she’s alive or dead, if she got to escape or not.

_What am I talking about? Of course she’s alive, somehow._

Where the hell are his brothers? Ben must be far, far away and Klaus must be scared if they didn’t get lost together.

“I have to pee.” Diego goes to the bathroom without saying more.

He goes to the old bathroom (old just for them) and the urinals look simpler but as dirty as in their present. He pees fast and, when he’s washing his hands, a man with a gray checkered suit and a big scarf gets inside and looks at him. Diego stays still. He checks out his pocket and, just like when they were kids, he has two sharp knives and a _shuriken_ Grace gave him for his ninth birthday after he insisted and insisted. They stare at each other and the other man is indescifrable. However, the dude shakes his head and goes to one of the cubicles. Diego frowns and goes back to the siblings as quickly as possible.

“Guys,” he says sitting on one of the chairs. They are near the exit. “I think we need to go, someone watched me weird.”

Five immediately suspects it’s someone from the Commission.

“Okay, let’s leave.” Five is trying to say, but he’s interrupted by Luther, who makes them sit down.

“We have to pay.”

Two minutes later, a waiter watches them and they get to ask for the bill. Five is nervous. What if the Handler has managed to escape in time and is sending them more counterattack? They need to leave.

“Wait!” someone says. Diego opens his eyes quickly and the others realize it’s the man that stared. They stand up quickly and the guy gets closer. “Look.”

The others run to the entrance, but they stop when Five stands still. They turn around and they see the man’s face. Five snaps.

“Hazel!?”

**~~~**

It feels good, really good. Just lying on bed, eyes closed but not sleeping, without siblings pressuring him (which, bad) or trying to make him tell things about his day (which, good); without drugs, alcohol or something to numb him. He’s just there, alone in Dave’s bedroom and thinking about others and about himself. Of course he has to go back with his siblings and he will but not now. It would be impulsive and even naive to say that he swears to never take drugs ever again if he doesn’t know what’s going to happen in his recent future. What he’s willing to do is doing what’s best for the others and what’s best for the others now is not taking drugs for being useful in battles. Because there will be. He loves Five but he blinds himself trying to be smarter than their enemies.

There’s a knock on the door and he doesn’t have to open his eyes to know who it is.

“Come in.”

Dave comes inside and leaves the door half open.

“I’ve never had to knock on my own door,” he says in a fun mood. Klaus smiles. “dinner’s ready, John.”

He opens his eyes. It’s not his Dave, but he feels so different and so _similar_ at the same time. Klaus sits on the edge of the bed.

“Okay.” Dave sits next to him. Klaus grinds his teeth, overwhelmed by closeness, and sighs. He has also noticed that the boy is clearly closer to him here than outside where they could be seen by literally anyone... which makes Klaus be obliged to ask this. “How far is this house from the north?” he asks, attentive. “Are we in Elizabethtown?”

“We’re in the neighborhood Lancaster,” the boy answers. “which is six hours by feet from that place.”

Klaus is surprised and lifts an eyebrow. But, then, he thinks it’s normal. He and Ben don’t know geography. They don’t know at what time they started to search for Vanya. It must have been at least 1 pm.

“Yeah.” he mutters. “Thank you.”

Dave smiles. That kind of gestures he has kept inside his memory.

One of the many things he _adored_ about adult Dave was the way he smiled with simplicity and tilting his head to one side at the same time, especially when they stepped away in the forest where they could be alone. Like right now.

“Let’s go have dinner.”

They go downstairs (carefully because of Klaus’ ankle) and start having dinner together. It’s such a simple thing, a big sandwich with cheese, lettuce and ham and a glass of water, but they enjoy each other’s company and talk a little bit about oneselves; and Klaus can’t ignore the way young Dave looks at him attentively and sweetly. It’s overwhelming in the good sense. They finish dinner and Dave offers to come back to his bedroom to find something to do. They cross the hall about to get on the stairs, but the door is opened by two people in their forties. A blonde woman with simple and gray clothes and a man with military clothes, more similar to Dave, but a _kippah_ accompanying his dark blond hair unlike his very blonde wife.

_Shit. Hello, parents-in-law._

Klaus doesn’t say anything, though. Dave doesn’t either. He stares at his parents in the same position they are, just a couple of yards away in the hallway, but they don’t look happy. Dave seems careful.

“Why are you not wearing your _kippah_ , David?” asks the father, Ismael. Klaus can feel his distance despite not being too far.

“I told you that I’m not wearing it when I’m alone, not in private.”

“But you’re not in private, apparently.” says the older man.

And, then, Klaus feels frozen by their looks. Now he understands why the house felt colder. It wasn’t the temperature, it was the ambient of the family.

“Who is he, David?” asks the mother, whose name Klaus doesn’t know. Somehow, she seems colder than her husband. That’s why adult Dave didn’t want to talk much about her.

“He’s John.” Dave answers after gulping deep. Klaus feels his tension and he wants nothing more than to hug him, but he’s not doing that right in front of them. “A friend.”

Ismael wrinkles his nose and the wife sighs like if her son were a lost cause. What the hell? If there’s one thing in the entire world Dave doesn’t do is being a lost cause. Klaus is the fuck-up here.

“David...” the father whispers with contained anger in his eyes. “He isn’t one of your _friends_ , right?”

Dave shakes his head quickly.

“No. I’m not doing those things anymore.”

 _Shit_ , Klaus thinks. Now he gets what they’re talking about. Their parents must be very attentive to which girl their son dates in case they don’t like her, every little detail about the girl has to be perfect. He doesn’t even want to imagine how his parents must have reacted seeing him having a walk with another _boy_ in his past, smiling and laughing; now again because Klaus is with their son. That’s why they only let him hang around with his cousins. Now, more than ever, he feels a physical impulse to run away with Dave and hug him, telling him everything will be okay.

Then, Klaus thinks that Dave must be pretending that he doesn’t _do those things anymore_. He has to find out if he really means it. Klaus knows Dave was bisexual, but he doesn’t know when he discovered that. Right in the 50s? In the middle of Vietnam?

“We’ll just grab some things and go to my cousin’s.”

“Which one?” Ismael questions.

“Aaron.”

The mother sighs again but disappears in the living room after nodding.

“Okay.”

Carefully, Klaus and Dave hurry to his bedroom and close the door. Without a word, the boy takes clothes and puts them in a bag, a pair of pajamas; Klaus is moved by that tender move because one of the two is for him. Agh, everything about him is enough to make him flustered, just like when they were in Vietnam.

“Are you okay?” Klaus mutters, reverent, getting a bit closer. Dave glances at him. He looks surprised. Do even his cousins ask how he’s doing daily? Dave shakes his head and nods. Of course.

“Well, I’m used to them.” he says closing his bag. They keep talking about his parents and that’s when Klaus finds out his mother-in-law is named Abigail. “... but they’re good people.”

“But are they good people _with you_?”

Klaus’ concern towards him surprises the boy. Dave just smiles and gets closer to him. The distance overwhelms Klaus. He wants so bad to reach out and stroke him... Instead, he shakes his head and takes Dave’s hands, but that’s enough to soothe them both.

“That doesn’t matter...” Dave mutters.

“It does. _You_ matter.” Klaus insists. Dave chuckles and takes his bag. “Is that Aaron too far away from here?”

Dave smirks.

“We’re not going with him, technically. We’re going to his tree house.”

Klaus follows him.

“Nice. I’ve never had a treehouse.”

**~~~**

The siblings decided to remain in the bar. But with one more person. They are in silence, trying to understand how the man ended up there. Then, Five explodes, asking what the hell is he doing there. Hazel explains that, after killing the Handler, he escaped with a briefcase with his loved one just when the world was turning to ashes and he has ended up in the same year as them because Agnes wanted to meet the decades through the years and they started in the 40s. The world was in the middle of a war, so they weren’t there too long. Then, Five is explaining that they time travelled back to the past in order to help Vanya, the person Hazel was sent to protect right before the apocalypse so that her siblings didn’t kill her.

“I’m sorry for the annoyances I must have made you all feel,” Hazel tells them and, then, looks at Diego. “especially you. For the girl.”

Then, Diego remembers Patch. He bows his head and touches his wrist, something she used to do when they finished banging and she joked about that his heart rate was quicker. Diego hasn’t had even a second to think about her, but now that he does, he doesn’t like the pit he feels in his stomach. He remembers Hazel and the other crazy woman. If only he had arrived earlier...

“We have to find our brothers.” Luther tells. Hazel understands and stands up.

“I have some tools I couldn’t get rid of. It was just in case the Commission pursued me and Agnes.”

The tools that Hazel has are quite out of this world, but they’re useful. They advance to a neighborhood called Lancaster. With some simple but advanced binoculars, Luther gets to see a young boy looking around in the middle of a field at one mile, trying to search or find out where he is.

“Guys! It’s Ben!”

Ben doesn’t understand how he ended up near a road after trying to unsuccessfully search for directions around the barn. There were soldiers on the private property, so he got away and found nothing. When he heard shootings he ran back to the barn and saw that Klaus was gone. At least Klaus was safe, so he walked back to what he thought was the north and got lost.

“Don’t tell Klaus that I got lost.”

“Deal.” Diego says. “We have to find him.”

“We have to leave this place.” Hazel claims and the others look at him. “Some minutes earlier I found some old companions from the Commission. Meaning that they knew we’re in 1952, meaning that we have to get away _way further_.”

Five knows Hazel is right. If the Commission is looking for them, the Handler must be alive, right? Or...?

“Let’s find Klaus. Maybe we could ask some of the neighbors around Lancaster.”

“We need to rest,” Luther claims. The others don’t understand. It’s not logical resting right now if the only thing they’ve done so far is finding Hazel. Also Ben. “If we’re caught by this Commission being tired and in the middle of the night we would be defenseless. Let’s go to Adah’s.” He looks at Five. “Can you transport us to her house?”

Five nods. And he does.

**~~~**

If Klaus felt more tense than ever at his parents-in-law’s house, in Aaron’s he feels too cuddled by a generous grandmother and a cousin who’s younger than them but as energetic as anyone. Not much later, Dave and Klaus climb the stairs to the tree house, carefully just like on their way to this home because of the ankle, and Klaus only sees one big bed.

“I can sleep on the sofa inside, if you want.” Dave offers.

“No, no way.” he answers. Aw, Dave, always being a gentleman. “We’ll sleep next to each other. I’ll put a pillow, though. I kick a lot at night despite my ankle and all.”

Dave chuckles and he puts a long pillow on the middle of the bed. They spend some time on the tree house especially talking, rambling, chuckling. Aaron and the grandmother go to sleep soon and they both lie on the bed soon as well, lying on their sides facing one another, but they don’t fall asleep yet. Talking, murmuring into the night. Their own moment alone until Klaus has to leave. At least, they have _right now_. And right now they are both trying to stay awake but slowly closing their eyes.

“Where are you from, John?” Dave asks lazily and yawns. Klaus also yawns, rubs his eyes in the middle of the darkness and puts both of his hands over the long pillow. Klaus has an argument against himself. If he lies, he’d feel bad about lying to _Dave_. If he tells the truth, adult Dave will suspect something weird in his future. Or it wouldn’t? Where is a Five when you need him? That shit is confusing.

Klaus just says.

“Oklahoma.”

Dave just nods into the dark and takes his hands over the pillow sweetly.

“Nice. Good night, John.”

Klaus smiles and squeezes his hands tenderly.

“Good night, _Dave_.”

**~~~**

In the morning, the siblings are much more energetic than yesterday both because they haven’t landed on this day again and because they fell asleep too soon. The sisters spent the night in the same bed, Five and Ben reluctantly accepted sharing one and Diego and Luther fought for who was taking more space on their mattress together. The thing is that they rested well tonight, but they need to keep going now that Hazel told them there are traces from the Commission around 1952 that are, of course, looking for them.

If the siblings get to help Vanya with her powers, the apocalypse doesn’t happen.

Some years ago (ago for Five), the Handler told him that the apocalypse always happens, no matter what. What if she’s lying about that? Or worse. What if she’s telling the truth and there will be something they’re going to miss in the time of truth? What will be the _time of truth_? Maybe, deep in his heart, he knows what to do. He’s going to tell that idea to Hazel when they get to Klaus.

Right now, they’re dressed with different clothes and having breakfast with the mother and the son. Later, they’re preparing themselves on the porch with everything useful they can get from Hazel and from Adah.

“By the way, where is your girl?” Five asks by mere curiosity.

“She’s safe. She’s in Philadelphia with some friends. I decided to walk around Lancaster because I saw some assholes I knew from the Commission. You remember Jack?”

Five growls.

“Of course I do.”

Luther tries to explain to Adah that they need to leave earlier than they thought because Hazel is an uncle of the family that found them yesterday. Adah accepts it and lets them go, not before giving them more food and a generous amount of cash. The Sun is already up but not enough to increase the heat so soon. They disappear into the forest and Five transports him back into Lancaster the neighborhood. They walk in the middle of the path that separates medium-wealthy families with their white houses, dark curtains and with last names from the Middle-East.

**~~~**

Klaus had forgotten the feeling of waking up facing Dave, holding hands and all. They used to do that when they had free time between training so the squad could split and they both went to abandoned places they found far, far away from the camps or discrete motels. Now, Klaus looks at Dave, smiles and they stretch under the thin sheets. The pillow has even fallen to the floor, so they’re comfortably closer to one another.

“Good morning.” Dave greets and he does the same. They get out of the bed and have breakfast together, where they keep talking. Then, he’s turning to him with a satchel bag on and offering. “Do you wanna stroll?”

Despite the soft pain in his left ankle, Klaus nods. They end up walking slowly in a beautiful garden near the farm of an old man whose wife died some years ago and he decided to dedicate himself to his true passion: flowers. Dave picks up some flowers for him and he says he’s allergic. Klaus doesn’t want to have more physical memories from him if these memories disappear any time they space-travel or time-travel; the sense of these objects disappearing is not pleasant.

Dave takes Klaus’ hands when they’re next to the forest, being under a big shadow where almost anybody can see them given they’re on a small hill.

This is it. This is the end. This is their end.

“John, you told me you were camping with your family when your sister got lost. Where are you going now?”

Klaus bows his head. This is hard.

“I...”

“You!”

Someone shouts behind them. They turn around without getting away from each other and, then, there’s Ben, who’s running towards his brother. Klaus feels relieved that his brother has found him. Ben gets with them, rests from running and looks at Dave in disbelief.

“Who is this?” his brother asks. Klaus smiles. Just a little bit of normality in his fucked up life, introducing his beloved one to one member of his family.

“Ben. This is _Dave_.”

Ben understands quickly and nods.

Dave tilts his head to one side and looks at Klaus.

“I’m not obsessed with trifles John, but I’m not used to nicknames.”

Klaus wants to laugh and cry at the same time. He remembers some months ago (ago for him) when Dave introduced himself to him in the bus in Vietnam. _“I’m Dave.”_

“Not a chance, _Dave_.” he insists. “I _am_ fond of nicknames. This is Ben.”

Ben nods with a soft grin and, then, he looks at his brother.

“Dude... We have to go. The others are here.”

Klaus knows. But he doesn’t want to. He has to... but it’s not easy, especially when David looks at him, surprised for his future departure.

“Yeah. Let me have some minutes, please.”

Ben nods and gets away from them immediately. Five would have probably insisted on coming to take Klaus right away, but Ben must have intervened when they saw him with another boy. Due to this, Klaus must talk to his siblings about Dave anytime soon. He needs to explain this. He faces Dave again and he has to resist the urge of taking his hand and running away with him into the forest and fuck everything else. But that would be _selfish._

Klaus shakes his head and confronts reality. The boy seems worried.

“I have to go, Dave.” Klaus says softly.

Klaus likes to think of himself of a strong and enduring person who takes what hurdles life throws at him despite the avenues he drowns himself into trying to survive those hurdles, like drugs or alcohol. However, he feels utterly weak and close to desperation when Dave’s blue eyes stare at him and tightens his hold on Klaus a little bit. The boy opens and closes his mouth several times until he finds words.

“A-Are you sure... that you have to go?”

“I do.” Klaus nods. “I do. My family needs me with them.”

Dave doesn’t have a united family, but he understands.

“Okay. I get it.” he comments. “Where are you going? I could, I mean, I could go see you or send you letters.”

Shit. Shit, what now? What can you say before _that_?

Adult Dave didn’t tell much about _John_ , just...

Klaus remembers briefly.

_“So,” Klaus told him when they were alone in a cabin that was like five miles away from the nearest camp and rounded by leafy trees. Just in case, they had the most locked door in the entire world and the windows were covered with pieces of carton boxes and curtains. They had just had a shower together and they were putting on some clothes. “I know you have only eyes for me, Davey, but was there anyone special just a little bit close to what you feel for me?”_

_He was half-joking, but Dave dried his hair with a towel, smiled and hugged him from behind. Klaus leant into the touch._

_“Well, apart from random lovers, when I started training in the militia back in the states I met this really nice nurse. Her name was Sarah. She was simple but smart and beautiful.”_

_“I am smart and beautiful!” Klaus claimed and Dave stuck out his tongue because they obviously knew that the_ simple _part didn’t apply to Klaus._

_“I know.” Dave followed his joke and kissed his cheek. “And before that... when I was sixteen, I met a boy in the neighborhood I lived in, he was thirteen I think. We didn’t get to kiss or anything, just... he was special.”_

_Klaus had laughed and faced him._

_“I am special!”_

_Dave laughed too._

_“More than anyone.”_

Klaus didn’t know by then that adult Dave was talking about adult-inside-a-boy’s-body-Klaus, but now Klaus knows that everything is connected from the beginning.

And about the question Dave has just asked... Klaus doesn’t know about geography, but he thinks of the first country that crosses his mind and the name of the city that he read once in a book.

“We’re moving out to Tsetserleg. Mongolia.”

Apparently Dave doesn’t know about Mongolia but guesses not even letters get there, so that’s okay.

“Oh. That’s fine.” he says and Dave hugs him. _We didn’t get to kiss or anything, just... he was special_. Klaus hugs him back and, despite considering himself a strong person, he lets tears go on his cheeks. He hides his head on his neck and sobs. He goes through hell, but he finds strength to get away from him. Dave, despite his teary eyes, looks for something in his pocket and finds a little paper bag with something inside while Klaus is drying his own tears. “It’s an anklet.”

Klaus feels like he dies and goes back to life again. First, the dog tags and the tattoo and now an anklet. If they time travel again, he’s going to think about a safe way to _keep_ this souvenir; whatever it takes.

The object is silver. It has some negligible little chains around the ring of the anklet and there’s half a heart on the center. Klaus is smart enough where the other half is.

“I have the other half at my house.” he says when they look at each other again. Of course. He holds the souvenir like the most precious thing ever, as a treasure. “Will we... Will we see each other again?”

He gulps.

“Yeah. _You_ will.”

After keeping the anklet inside his pocket, Klaus hugs him again. Some seconds later, he finds the courage to split from the hug, say Dave goodbye and get away without turning back to see him. He’d regret it if he did so.

**~~~**

Klaus doesn’t say anything when he gets back with the others near a crop. Luther asks him if he’s okay and his brother says he is. Ben does know the truth. Then, Klaus is shocked to see one of his past kidnappers. Diego tells him that it’s okay, that he’s going to help them, despite Diego wants to stay away from Hazel too. After everything, he still was involved in Patch’s death.

“So...” Five tells finally. They’re sitting behind a giant billboard near a road that heads out of Pennsylvania after walking some minutes. “Are you sure that’s what we have to do?”

Hazel nods.

“Yes. The apocalypse doesn’t stop by just avoiding Vanya to destroy the Moon. The thing starts decades earlier.”

“Why?” Luther asks.

“Because the Handler says that, no matter what, the apocalypse always happens.” Hazel eats one of the sandwiches Adah made for them. “You must have failed to stop the apocalypse in earlier time-lines because you just focused on your present.”

“So...” Five sighs. “We have to start before. How do we do that? I’d end up exhausted when we get to our present if we travel too much.”

Hazel, with the infinite objects that brings with him, uncovers a briefcase. The siblings know what it is.

“I know how to use it to take us to different decades.”

Five frowns.

“I... You... What?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Why?”

“You need my help,” he says, serious. “I know better than you, even than Five, how to avoid other workers of the Commission. Besides, it will get more complicated when we return to 2019. This doesn’t end with Handler dying. This ends when the Commission dies. That, in 2019.”

The year in question makes all of them chill.

“What about Agnes?” Five mutters. Hazel just sighs and looks up at the sky.

“She’ll be safer in 1952.” He looks at them again. “We have to talk about the exact days and years we go. And which events to avoid. We’ll start in November 1963, I know the Handler was obsessed about that year.”

They have a very long conversation about the events to prevent. When they do take the briefcase holding hands they arrive where Hazel first told and avoid what they have to avoid or, in this case, the thing they do have to cause. They still look like teenagers throughout the decades because none of them were born yet and because when you travel with a briefcase you don’t get older or younger. It only has secondary effects when Five uses his own powers.

However, when they’re running away from some lords of the mafia in the 2005 France, because of the fact that the briefcase has received a hit and Hazel can’t fix it in the middle of the fight, Five has to take their hands and go to 2019. This time, they return as their old-looking selves, their adult looks except Five because he looked like a kid in that year when he went back from the future.

Last stop. Three events to prevent in a week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm one of the least conceited people that I know, but I'm actually quite proud of how this turned out. Whatever it's just this episode published or one of the then, I hope you liked it
> 
> [ "Adah Hartman": Claire Foy ]  
> [ "Adam Hartmant": Iain Armitage ]  
> [ "young David Katz": Graham Verchere ]  
> [ "Ismael Katz": Ryan Reynolds ]  
> [ "Abigail Katz": Elisha Cuthbert ]


	3. 2x02: "Ain't No Sunshine"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when they’re back in 2019 when there are their others selves in 2019?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second episode | Song: "Ain't No Sunshine", by Bill Withers

_Ain’t_ _no sunshine when she’s gone_

_It’s not warm when she’s away_

_Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone_

_And she’s away gone too long_

_Anytime she goes away..._

**~~~**

When Hazel finds the correct door of the building, he tries to knock it a few times until he’s sure there’s nobody. They don’t want to bump into _more_ unexpected danger. There isn’t any noise inside or someone speaking, someone sneaking, so he opens it with a twist of his hand; the lock was weak anyway and nobody is around that floor or even that wing of the construction. The lights are too weak and every step is overly heard on the wood.

“This hallway is scary.”

While they’re getting inside the flat one by one because apparently the architect of the building designed it for hobbits, Diego makes fun of his brother.

“What did you expect from abandoned apartments?” he mutters to Ben with a mocking tone, something appreciated even in their situation. All of them get inside the dark flat. Hazel closes the door and gets to lock it with something he improvises in that moment. It’s not the safest lock in the world, but it’s enough in case someone notices them inside. Safety comes first. “Are we alone in this place? Or this floor?”

“Well...” Five mutters in the middle of the darkness. “Minutes earlier, Hazel told me that illegal immigrants come here but not mafias. More like families in danger. Also prostitutes.”

In fact, the first time Hazel came around here for one of his missions with an old partner, he bumped into a Colombian family of eleven members. That was around 1921. The only one who spoke English was an eight year old kid that almost caught him and his partner in the middle of their mission. Luckily, the family got to live in the country legally.

Hazel gets to lock the door and turns on the light of the living room. They watch around themselves in the old flat. It’s about one hundred and sixty five square feet. The walls have an old yellow-brown wallpaper and the corners of each room are kind of worn-out (more like not cleaned in some years; Diego is already nervous with the tiny spiders he’s seeing). It wouldn’t be surprising to find a cockroach. The properties inside the flat are the most decent things in it and the kitchen is not bad either. However, a big problem is that the three _bedrooms_ are in sight, just like the rest of the rooms from the center of the flat. The center is the living room-dining room with a table, some chairs and a small TV on the left corner in front of a small sofa. The three bedrooms with three double-beds (and no doors), the kitchen and the entrance hall are in sight. The most private spaces are the two doors of the laundry room and the bathroom, which has a little square for the shower, one mirror, the toilet and a sink.

A big contrast to the Academy.

They were used to big spaces where they could run (but not too much due to scheduled free time), to train in a big space and be alone on their own at the same time. Apparently, now they will have no choice but to be too together in a tiny flat for God knows how much time. Will it still be their place when they solve everything if they get to do it? They hope not, but that’s not something too important compared to the big deal.

There will be plenty of time to complain about their space after they’re done. The _now_ is what matters. They sigh, sit on the wooden chairs of the living room (Diego is on the floor and Vanya is on the sofa, close to her sister) and others in silence, not talking in a while, not even Hazel or Klaus. They’ve only had a four-months mission around the decades, but they feel like they have been screwing around with time for a longer period. Man, is that how Five felt when he returned from the future? Even before doing that when he was forced to kill people?

By the way, Ben is dead again.

They were devastated when they found out. It was in their mission of September 2001, the previous one being April 1986. They crossed the year they were born in and Ben told them that he had stopped breathing. Just like his pulse. He still had the look of a kid. Nobody understood why, he should have been alive if they were travelling still with a briefcase before it was damaged in 2005, but he was dead, no matter what. Nevertheless, now that they have returned to 2019 with Five instead the briefcase, everyone including Ben has returned to their original looks, except for a few things. Luther got a scar on his neck in a mission in his child-look and back again in 2019 he still has the scar. Diego has grown his hair just a little bit longer from his ears (and some hair on his forehead as bangs) in his child-look and, now, he still has that hairstyle. Allison had his old blonde curly hair from before but shorter and a scar on her arm. Klaus has grown his hair too until his shoulders. Five is the one who has changed less, but he got more scars instead. Ben got a big one on his leg, but now that he’s looking at his leg, it’s not there anymore. Rules for ghosts who time travel are different. And Vanya has grown her hair longer, until her lower back. Allison loves to braid it.

Stating that they’re very tired would be falling short. And they’re not over with this shit yet, not even half an hour after they took Five’s hand in 2005 and went back here again.

Hazel returns and sits on the floor, close to Diego. Ben looks at his brother sitting on a chair of the table, with old-fashioned clothes and a different hairstyle, and Klaus looks like he has something inside of his mouth. He’s about to ask, but Klaus takes something out of his lips, with saliva and all. A silver anklet.

“What in the world is that?” Ben whispers, wrinkling his nose. 

“Dave gave it to me in 1952.” he smiles with sadness. Another good memory from him, like most he had with him. He dries the anklet with his sleeves and takes off his shoe. “I already know a way to conserve small things. It’s disgusting, but it’s useful.”

Klaus opens the anklet, closes it around his ankle (the ankle shot by the bullet) and puts his shoe back on its place. Now Dave will be with him everywhere he goes.

“Excuse me,” Allison mutters but loud enough to be heard by the others. “who’s Dave?”

Klaus freezes and Ben nods trying to support his brother. Shit, he didn’t expect that conversation so soon. Is it the time to talk about him? But then again, which time is the correct one? They can’t even stop to catch a breath, not now. He sighs and puts his longer hair behind his ears. He takes a long time to do this.

“He...” Klaus starts saying. It’s way different telling his story to Ben or Diego than to all of them at the same time. This conversation would have ended being mentioned sooner or later. “When I was kidnapped by the shithead woman and that man over there,” He points at Hazel, who snaps from that. He stands up and listens. When Diego told the others about his story with Patch and how guilty he felt for telling her to be more like him, he was about to leave, but Luther asked him to stay. They’re working together; they have to trust each other to do that. “I got to escape thanks to Patch and took their briefcase with me. I tried to open it to get some cash or something, but I...” He gulps. “... I ended up in the 1968 Vietnam and met a man. A man that I loved and that died.”

Everyone stays still. Even though he wants to tell more, his throat won’t let him to. He’s tired and he honestly doesn’t like to. He bites his lips and lowers his head.

“The boy we saw you with, in Lancaster,” Five says. “it was him, right?”

Klaus nods. Now they understand why Ben insisted on approaching. It would have been bad if someone else did.

“I’m sorry.” Vanya tells him.

They’re bonding. They still have to work on trust issues caused by their shithead father, but it’s more than they have done in their entire lives. Still, a lot of work to do. Five and Allison don’t talk to each other since their heated up argument because in the bottom of her heart Allison knows he was right, Vanya still stays away from Luther, Klaus doesn’t want Hazel close (because there are some things that one can’t simply forget or delete from their minds) and most of them except Allison and Five don’t trust Luther. Actually, almost all of them trust him, but they’re expecting how he handles this situation now that they’re back in 2019, the year where _everything_ went wrong.

“Okay...” Diego says after more moments of needed silence. “I guess it’s time to talk.”

Some of them nod, but they keep quiet until Five stands up again and rubs his hand. 

“Let’s talk about the three big deals.”

Hazel sighs and closes his eyes, which is what represents their situation. They don’t want to talk, especially for such a long trip throughout the decades, but they need to.

“Yeah, yeah, we know...” Klaus mutters.

Five hisses and rubs his eyes.

“Damn, it looks like I’m the only one who doesn’t want the end of the world to happen.” he says, tired.

“What?” Diego frowns, standing up from the floor next to Hazel. “Repeat that again? Repeat that again, please. Because your ego won’t let you speak right and your obsession shakes me.”

Five tries to freeze him with his eyes, but Diego doesn’t fall short.

“Could we focus on talking...?” Vanya tries to say in the background, but she’s ignored.

“You’ve always been this way.” Diego states. “Not just as an old man trapped in that body, of which you _always_ complain. Always thinking you’re ahead of us, of everyone, with this superior complex, and thinking _I know I’m better than all of you_. Guess what, Five? You’re not! You’re as fucked as us, you’re not better than anyone despite what you think!”

“I know I’m fucked up, the difference is that _I_ carry on, not like all of you.” The others are shocked to listen to that, but Five keeps focusing on Diego. “And! Last I checked, you were the one who thought you were superior to other cops, that’s why they kicked you out and how you ended up living on the back of a _gym_.” Five screams.

“Stop!” Luther intervenes, standing up between both of them. “Stop it, please.”

“Yeah, the most peaceful one talks...” Diego hisses. When Luther looks back at him, he sighs and sits on the floor again. “I’m sorry.”

“Okay.” Number One says after Five gives up and says he’s sorry too. “Let’s talk. Hazel, what do we have to do?”

Still with the damaged briefcase close, Hazel, sighing and scratching his head, sits on a chair and cracks his hands.

“I don’t know which three events must be avoided. But... I have some possibilities that _might_ save the world.” He pauses. “We have a big problem here which messes things up, a thing the Handler has talked to me about because it’s the catalyst. Which is...?”

They think about it until Allison opens her eyes.

“Harold Jenkins!”

“Correct.” Hazel nods. Vanya bows her head and endures the pain of the memory. Memories. She sighs. Damn right, what a catalyst. “What do we have to do with him?”

“Perhaps...” Five says. “Killing him before Vanya does it and...”

“No, no way,” Hazel interrupts and everyone stares. “it’s logical that if his death is the catalyst, we have to keep him alive.”

Vanya lifts her eyes when the man mentions that possibility.

“Keep him alive? Keep him alive? You must be joking.”

“Yeah,” Allison jumps into her defense, frowning. “there must be another way, I mean...”

“Well...” Diego thinks about it. “It looks like making the opposite things that went wrong have to be done on the opposite way. Okay, we have to keep that bastard alive, then what?”

Ben looks at Vanya, who bows her head again, tightening her eyelids. She keeps silent, but that doesn’t mean she likes the idea of helping that _dude_ to stay alive, not after all the pain he caused, all the lives he condemned. Vanya doesn’t say anything in response. She was like that when they were kids. Her silence meant that she accepted something, not that she was content about it.

“The death of that shitload of bullshit happens the night before the night of the apocalypse.” Five reminds. “That happens way too far, well, compared to all of the things that happen before it.”

“That’s why we have to avoid something first.” They keep thinking until Hazel speaks again. “Maybe... Vanya getting first chair?”

“I don’t think so.” Five shakes his head. “We would have to prevent Harold from killing the previous first chair, which would make us fight him to save that woman and that happens too soon. And it’s recommendable to prepare ourselves for the big one.”

“Which is...?” Klaus asks.

Luther knows before anyone else.

“The Moon.”

Diego wants to call him stupid, but he doesn’t say anything, not that is the best moment to bother him. He wants to call him pain in the ass for his thing about the Moon but not right now. He still snorts and rolls his eyes, which his brother notices. Something typical from these two _friendenemies_ brothers.

“The Moon.” Hazel nods. “I’ll be right back.” He disappears through the kitchen and returns with an old and medium sized blackboard and box of chalks, stuff hidden around these small apartments. He writes _one:_ , _two:_ and _three:_ , one under the other. On the right of _two_ he writes _Harold death_ and a _Moon_ on the right of the _three._ “Okay. And the first one?”

It takes a little bit longer for the first one, until Klaus intervenes crossing his legs on the chair.

“And the eye thing?” he asks, moving an arm on the air. “The thing about the eye is kind of a big deal, don’t you think?”

Five nods and goes to the blackboard, taking one of the chalks. Just in case, some of them have taken a notebook and now they’re writing the essentials on it. It feels like a goddamn class.

“The prosthetic eye...” he mutters, tapping his foot on the floor. “In our world, I took it from Luther’s dead hand after the end of the world.”

“How did he get it? How would he get it if you weren’t with us the first time around?” Allison questions.

They look at him. Luther thinks for some seconds, what he would do.

“I guess, I would have been trying to search for a responsible person for...” He gulps and strokes the sleeves of his big, brown coat. “... dad’s death.” After the thing about the Moon, he doesn’t know how to call their father anymore. Allison notices that and to reassure him but paying attention, showing support. “I’d start by suspecting all of you, like I actually did. But then, after dismissing that idea, I’d take into account the fact that Allison didn’t trust Leonard, so I would investigate him.”

“Then, what?” Five asks.

“I don’t know, I haven’t been there.”

“Just guess or imagine what would you do if I hadn’t returned from the future.”

“I, don’t, know.” the big one says slower but with less patience. Five sighs and sits down again, still with a chalk in his hand, impatient and tired. If there’s anything worse than impatient Five is impatient _and_ tired Five.

“I guess... _Harold_ still loses an eye when those bad guys attacked us both on purpose.” Vanya reminds.

“Maybe.” Hazel says. “That would explain why the dead Luther after the apocalypse had the eye.”

“But they couldn’t get to know who it belonged to.” Ben finishes, still tangible since they arrived, but Klaus is tired too, so it won’t last very long in what’s left of the day.

“Right.” Five mutters. “or maybe... you _got_ to know that but didn’t confirm it, otherwise...” He thinks. “... that bastard would have the eye. Perhaps, the dude returned to the hospital the day after and didn’t find the eye because _your other selves_ took it, trying to figure out who it belonged to.”

Or something like that. There’s no way to find out if Five wasn’t there with them because he was in the future after the apocalypse.

“The thing is...” Hazel speaks again. “The eye. Before the hospital, where did it come from?”

Five almost jumps from his seat and looks at Hazel.

“The place you two idiots destroyed!”

The other man frowns.

“Meritech Prosthetics? How right...”

“Do you know anything about that place?”

There’s silence again, until Hazel answers the question.

“I always say a lot of things about what few things the Handler has told me, but I don’t know anything about this place. Just that we had to destroy it for Five not to find the identification of the eye.” he keeps thinking. “I just knew she was obsessed with that place. I didn’t investigate more because she creeped me out, she still does.”

“She was obsessed with that place?” Diego asks. “Maybe we could avoid that too.”

Hazel writes _Meritech on fire_ on the left of the word _one_.

Three events. Only one chance per each one.

“What if we don’t get to prevent one or two before the Moon thing?” Klaus asks. Good question.

“We have to stop the apocalypse.” Five claims. “The two first events help prevent it. But if we don’t get to avoid those two first ones... we have a very low probability of stopping the end of the world.”

There’s also the fact that if they don’t get to help _their_ Vanya, there would be double danger because there are two of herself in this parallel universe. They keep silent but not thinking, with tension. Vanya closes her eyes. All of that because of her. She feels a hand on hers and it doesn’t take long before she realizes it’s Allison’s. Vanya tries to smile at her sister, even if it’s not an honest gesture.

The siblings and Hazel look at the blackboard in front of the TV.

“So, we have to avoid... First, the destruction of Meritech. Two, Harold’s death. Three, the destruction of the Moon.” Diego mutters, hitting the wall behind his back softly. “Guys, we’re in 2019.”

“You don’t say?” Klaus taunts. “What’s your point, brother?”

“He means that our other selves are around there and will be around there trying to stop this apocalypse too.” Five points out. “What if some of our other selves see us? What if the other Klaus sees our Ben as a ghost being with his Ben next to him?”

That’s something not even Klaus hadn’t thought about. These versions of themselves meeting them would mess things up even more, not that they’re not fucked up already.

“We have to be subtle.” Hazelcomments, still close to the board.

“What are you suggesting?” Luther questions to Hazel. “Costumes?”

“Not costumes, but some changes of looks.”

“Ooh! I like it!” Klaus exclaims, smiling. “I’ll go to see what I have in my bag! Woohoo...”

“A change of look sounds stupid.” Diego comments. “I know we have to do it, but it’s stupid.” he grumbles, looking at the floor.

“C’mon! It’ll be fun.” Klaus takes his bag and chooses one bed to throw himself on. The living room is barely three yards away from the beds. Diego and Ben follow him to the bedroom on the right. “Most of the clothes are teen-sized, but some of these can be okay...” He searches on his bag. It’s a pity because throughout the decades he had been carrying three bags with clothes for his teenager body, but when they were running away from the mafia of 2005 in Bordeaux, he couldn’t return to their hideout and only had one bag in that moment. “This one!”

Klaus takes out a reddish top that fits small on him, but it looked better on his teenager body. Ben shakes his head.

“Really? Not this one? What about these tight jeans?”

Diego turns around and goes to the bathroom. He closes the door and he only has to spin around to look at his reflection in the tiny bathroom. He opens the mirror and finds scissors inside. He looks at the reflection again, takes a lock of hair and opens the scissors, but he doesn’t cut anything. He freezes.

“ _I prefer your long hair.” she said while playing with his longer hair than usual. “You can do whatever you want with it, but I like it longer.”_

_Diego hadn’t listened to her. He just started to cut it._

Diego doesn’t know what it’s going to happen in the future, not even in a few days. But apparently, Patch still dies. And that feeling is unnerving, feeling useless all over again. The future is uncertain and scary, but he has to fight until the end, no matter what.

He frowns and leaves the scissors where they were. There’s no time for self-compassion.

**_[“Ain’t No Sunshine”, Bill Withers]_ **

_... Wonder this time where she’s gone_

_Wonder if she’s gone to stay_

_Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone_

_And this house just ain’t no home_

_Anytime she goes away_

**~~~**

All of them feel kind of foolish for the new clothes because they have been comfortable about what they wore in their _normal_ lives, except Klaus. Klaus likes the change, he has always liked wardrobe changes. Luther has just picked a different color coat (blue), Diego has left his longer hair, Ben and Five almost remain the same and Vanya hasn’t chosen yet. Allison, being a celebrity in that world, has to pick up a dark, wavy wig for not being easily recognized. It’s mysteriously creepy how there are so many strange things hidden in these apartments. But, then again, it’s where illegal immigrants and prostitutes hide; Hazel was surprised too when he had to stay in these rooms.

“Where is Hazel?” Allison asks just as the man returns and locks the door again. “Never mind.”

Hazel is carrying food, a bag with something inside and a book. He leaves the book on the table and the siblings look at it.

“It’s a telephone book, from the city and around. The biggest one I could find in the library.” he comments. “And this...” He takes the bag and empties on the table too. The objects are some sunglasses and walkie-talkies. “It’s all I could find on lost objects in the supermarket.” 

“How do you get all of these objects?” Luther asks, distrusting a little bit.

“Perks of being a former worker of the Commission. Ask the little one.” he speaks about Five.

“Call me _little one_ again and I’ll throw you into those lost objects.”

All of them take one talkie and a pair of sunglasses, for discretion.

“We’re in the first night.” Five warns. “Do you all know what that means?” The others shake their heads. “Reginald dies.”

They keep silent for the millionth time at night. It’s around 1 am and they haven’t slept in twenty four hours. It’s been barely three hours since they landed from 2005.

“So...” Ben dares to break the silence.

“So, in the morning most of _us_ are going to be told those news, then our reunion, then my other me arriving from the future, then the funeral, then all of the rest of the day.” Five summarizes. “We have to follow our own steps for us to know how to act and when not to act.” They stay still. Vanya yawns and Klaus strokes his hair. “Let’s talk in the morning, okay?”

**~~~**

It’s early in the morning and, because of the fact that some things never change, Vanya opens her eyes before anyone else. Luther did it as a kid as well but, _you know_ , they’ve never talked much even if they ran into each other in the kitchen, which, logical. Five used to do that too until he jumped into the future, so they didn’t really meet each other in the mornings.

Vanya sighs, without moving too much on the bed. Vanya and Allison are in the bedroom on the left; Luther and Hazel in the middle one and Five, Diego and Klaus on the right one. Ben is around the hallways of the building in case he sees something suspicious so that he can warn them about imminent danger.

She caresses her longer, dark hair and looks outside the small window. The Sun is appearing through the sky and the birds start to sing their melodies. Vanya envies them. They’re able to _fly_ and sing their music without worrying about anything. Minutes later, they start waking up. Diego, as usual, is the last one. Then again, some things never change. They sit around the table and eat some cookies and juices that Hazel got last night from the market when it was about to close at midnight. Luckily, it’s enough to keep them with energy for the next two days.

“Remember,” he starts with his speech. “from now on, when something suspicious happens, you’ll warn it on the talkies.” Five reminds them while taking breakfast. “Now.” He takes a deep breath after finishing a cookie. “The first event. Meritech.”

“What do we know about that building?” Diego asks sleepily.

“They sell prosthetics.” Five answers. “There are some snitches working for the black market.”

“Could one of those snitches be working with the Commission?” Allison asks. “That may connect this prosthetics place to the Handler.”

“Yeah.” Luther hums. “And how could we find things about that woman? I mean, what do you know about her, Hazel?”

The man sighs deeply and slowly.

“Like I said before, I know a lot of things about the Commission but not the half even. I know a lot of things she was obsessed with and things she hated. But _her_? I’m not sure.” he mutters, buffing. “But... we could search info in a few places where the Commission has worked previously.”

“Like previous headquarters?”

“Yes.” Hazel says. “Most of them are underground because these HQ are like centuries old and there are like... two or three places around the city? They still are useful, though.” They finish eating but keep talking. “What time is it?”

“10 am.” Five answers.

“What were you doing at this hour?”

They think about it. In order, they start.

“Landing on Earth.”

“Sleeping.”

“Waking up my daughter to tell her I was going to her grandpa’s funeral.”

Klaus takes long in answering.

“Dunno. Drugs?” he shrugs.

“I was... I was in 1963, trying to figure out to come back.”

Ben says. “Trying not to look at Klaus getting high.” Although, he knows Klaus had already known about the funeral.

Klaus laughs with sadness. Sad but true. Hell, if there’s something that describes that aspect of his life is _sad but true_.

“Walking on the street.” Vanya says. “I know that’s how I realized dad was dead.”

“You have to keep your other selves under surveillance.” Hazel reminds from last night. “Otherwise, we won’t know when to act with the events.”

“So, what do we do now?”

Five stands up. He has an idea of what they’re going to do.

“Some of us have to start figuring out why Meritech is important to the Handler. The others can follow the steps of our other selves.”

“Can we have code names for our own selves? Us? Them?” Klaus asks, rubbing his temple. “This shit is confusing.”

“What about _copies_?” Ben suggest.

“Technically, they’re not copies, they’re the ones in their universe, we’re the intruders here in-”

“Copies it is, then.”

Five tightens his teeth and keeps his OCD at bay.

“Okay. They’re the _copies_ , we’re the originals.” Five rubs his hands. “Who wants to come with me to the Academy? To watch the copies and luckily get info?”

Returning to the Academy. Sounds weird and odd when they last saw it destroyed.

“Fine, me.” Luther says. “Do we need someone else? Maybe Hazel?”

“I better guide the rest to this old headquarters I know.” Hazel states.

They stand up and get to their bags to dress themselves with these new clothes. The most excited one about a change of look is obviously Number Four. Luther takes a jacket of a clearer color he would use that he chose last night before wearing the new blue coat, Diego shakes his longer hair because that’s something the Diego from the past wouldn’t do, Allison puts on the new wig and clothes more gray than usual, Klaus dresses with a red crop top, a white long jacket with red flounces, white pants accompanied by a red belt and white ankle boots, one of them accompanied by Dave’s anklet, Five has to wear vivid colors (which he protested about), Ben is enough with a scarf and Vanya has a ponytail and new leather pants Klaus lends to her. She feels odd. Hazel is enough with shaving off his beard more than he would and putting on a different jacket. Otherwise, other workers from the Commission would recognize them.

They are probably going to recognize them anytime soon, but this delays that problem.

They go to the portal and make sure no parked car is watching them. Back in 1952, the Commission took about six hours long figuring out they were there.

“I go with Luther to the Academy.” Five says again to the others. “You have the talkies. Warn me about _anything_ , okay?”

They split from each other. Despite working together, despite being family trying to fix things up, distance is secretly appreciated.

**~~~**

“Where are we going?” Ben asks Hazel when they’re walking next to some railways. They’ve been walking for half an hour. They’re going to get some cars sooner or later. It’s been five minutes since Klaus has made Ben visible because he wanted to talk with the others.

“Have I told you guys about Jack? One of my old coworkers?”

“Not particularly.” Allison answers.

“He was one of the most ass-kissing workers that was always next to the Handler.” Hazel says kneeling down a little for going inside some concrete medium sized-tubes. The others do the same. Ben and Klaus are the last ones and Diego makes sure Vanya doesn’t feel bad about the lack of space, so he takes her hand until they’re both outside. “What a dumbass. I wonder where he will be, probably freaking out because of Handler’s missing.”

“How do we know she’s gone?”

Hazel keeps quiet. They arrive at a building that was left without being finished.

“We don’t know. Five likes to feel in advantage to his enemies, but we don’t know. I killed her in 2019, but what about the Handler from the past?”

They enter the building rounded by bricks, amounts of concrete and wheelbarrows. They follow the old worker through some derailed stairs under the ground after they dig in the earth with their own hands for a while because the stairs were buried. Then, under the land there’s a dark hallway and they walk some minutes, sometimes bending or turning around corners.

“It’s cold here.” Klaus comments looking around at the walls of the hallway. Luckily, it’s high enough for not squatting. “What are we doing for the rest of the day?”

“Searching. It sounds boring, but it’s like a gymkhana. Once you find something, you can’t stop.” They turn around a corner and see a door at some yards of distance. Hazel makes his flashlight brighter and the door is metallic and dark. “Who’s strong here?”

Before suggesting using Vanya’s powers, Diego takes a step forward and tries to break the door. After some seconds, he gets to break the handle and kick the door off.

They enter a room about one hundred square feet and it looks like the fifteenth century. The walls are dark but not too much. There are dozens of book shelves, dozens of tables with calculus papers and folders. The only strange thing that doesn’t fit in it’s the fact that there are computers from the twentieth century.

“There must be more rooms behind that door,” Diego says pointing at a door in the back of the area surrounded by walls made out of bricks. He’s nervous because the spiders from this ceiling are way bigger than in the hideout, around a quarter of an inch more. “let’s try to open it.”

Diego and Hazel try to open the door while the others are looking at the papers. They have lighted some bulbs from the ceiling, but it’s not much to see too much of the books. These folders, books and papers are kind of disordered but still over the tables. All of the tables are together in the center of the room.

“Shit, I can’t understand anything.” Klaus comments bending over the books. All of them have gloves just in case. Five probably would say _it’s maths basics_. Reginald obviously taught them even advanced maths, but all of those memories have gone out in the air. He’s just not a number person. He wonder’s what kind of person he’s good at, what talent he’s good at, if he even has one.

“Physics.” Hazel says, still working in the door. “Get away from those, try to search in the folders of history of directorate or something like that.”

They look at the folders over the high shelves. Vanya finds a big black folder on the top of a shelf. She looks around and nobody is looking. She closes her eyes, focuses on the soft sound of the water running through the old pipes of this place and the folder falls to her hands. She even surprises herself.

“That was cool.” Ben tells her. She gets surprised with him more and looks at the folder, then back at her brother. “You did it.”

She sighs. She wants to tell a lot of things, that she would basically go full-power again if they need her in a future fight, but she doesn’t mention this last fact.

“I don’t think lifting a folder will be useful in a battle. But thanks.”

Ben smiles with sadness and gets away.

Vanya opens the book on a small table under a bulb. It’s related to small events throughout history, little important. She starts turning pages and a torn paper falls off the folder. She kneels to take it and begins to read. It says in bold **_treason, treason, treason_ ** and next to a lot of words about physics, chemistry and some other crossed words at the end of the page but still visible: _I didn’t want these powers. If only that machine didn’t exist._ And more words about chemistry and physics and biology.

Vanya is about to show the book to the others, but Hazel curses and gets away from the door with her brother.

“No can do. Fucking door.” the man says. “What did you find?”

“Jack was, indeed, an ass-kissing guy.” Allison reads in a spreadsheet. “Most of the inventions of the Commission are his.”

“I think I have something.” Vanya says, getting close to them in a matter of seconds. “Look.”

They read what she has just read. They don’t understand.

“What?” Hazel mutters.

“Who wrote this?” Diego asks, bending over the table. “Was this person talking about the Handler? We don’t know for sure.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Hazel reads it again and again. “It’s her calligraphy, I think. I’m not certain...”

“What do you know about her powers?”

He sighs.

“Like I’ve said several times, I know a lot of things about the Commission. However, I don’t know much about the Handler, but I don’t know anything about her powers. I thought she just travelled with the suitcase.” he states. “Also, that she appeared out of nowhere when she froze time and that she always does that when we phoned her in an emergency call.”

“She freezes time.” Allison whispers, rubbing her eyes. “That’s dangerous.”

“I remember she froze time when Five and Luther gave us the fake briefcase because, then, Five was gone and my gun ran out of bullets all of a sudden.” he comments. Klaus gulps down. He remembers _the_ briefcase. The briefcase he took and made him _poof_ to 1968. “And, then, she disappeared with Five. Which means she can teleport too.”

“That’s also dangerous.” Allison finishes. “What kind of machine grants space and time travel if that machine has given her powers?”

“I don’t know that either.” Hazel confesses. He touches his forehead, trying to think. “But we have a clue about her. Besides, maybe we could take advantage of the moments she freezes time so that we can talk-”

“No, that shit is too dangerous.” Ben says frowning, really serious. “It would be too risky. Talking to _the_ Handler? Really?”

Before tension rises up, Diego intervenes.

“Let’s just focus on figuring out things about her for dismantling the Commission.” he states with a wave of his hand. “The Commission: Meritech, the bastard and the Moon.”

“Do these folders tell anything about Harold or the Moon? They must...”

They hear metallic noises. Perhaps, the pipes or even the wind over them outside. Or not. They keep silence and breathe quietly. They stay still and Diego walks towards the door. He tries to listen, but he turns towards them and shakes his head, meaning that there’s nobody in the hallway.

“Let’s go.” Allison whispers.

While they walk all the way back to the stairs, there are some noises that feel over them, in the ground, it’s like the floor over them is moving alone, so they move faster and in a matter of minutes they go upstairs and get away from the building. There isn’t anybody working.

“What was that?” Vanya breathes while they’re out of the fence of the place.

“No idea.” Diego says checking her out. “You okay?” Vanya nods. “Let’s go back to our hideout.”

**_[“(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”, Blue Öyster Cult]_ **

_All our times have come_

_Here but now they’re gone_

_Seasons don’t fear they’re gone_

_Seasons don’t fear the reaper_

_Nor do the wind, the sun or the train, we can be like they are_

_Come on baby, don’t fear the reaper_

_Baby take my hand, don’t fear the reaper_

_Baby I’m your man_

**~~~**

It’s been two hours for them. The others must be heading to that place outside the city Hazel mentioned. In the meantime...

“... I feel uneasy being here.” Luther confesses in a whisper.

They’re outside the Academy, sitting on a bench behind a car. They’re pretending to read newspapers they got to buy thanks to Adah’s money. Before buying anything, they decided to earn some money from its antiquity and get current cash because they didn’t think Adah’s money would be accepted in 2019.

“I know.” Five says, attentive to the door. He kind of feels the same, but he doesn’t say that. “Look!”

They pay attention. They both look at the entrance of the Academy and stay still when they see the _copy_ of Klaus, black penny lane coat, black pants and messy hair entering the building. It feels quite nostalgic because they were simpler times _even_ if, by then, those were complicated times. Still, simpler. However, simpler doesn’t mean better. Klaus used to get high, Allison was isolated with her own family, Ben couldn’t talk to them, Five was gone, Luther was alone, Vanya was alone too and Diego lived in a depressing place.

“Our signal?” Luther asks, scratching the scar of his neck. Five nods. “We will wait for the last one to arrive and we get inside. Then, what?”

“We investigate Reginald’s info.” the old man says, closing his newspaper. “Carefully. You’re clumsy.” Luther frowns. He somehow feels Five’s insults are real, not like his best-friend-brother’s insults. Diego is kind of smooth with that. “Are you gonna tell me that’s not true?”

“Then, why did you accept bringing me here?”

“I needed someone.” he says. Luther stares at him through the sunglasses. “What?”

“You needed someone. Missions are not done alone. Admit it, you always need someone when it comes to missions.”

“When we’re talking about messing timelines, of course.”

Only Five Hargreeves could admit needing someone without saying he needed someone. He wonders how something like that would change.

Minutes later, they start getting close because their copies have all arrived at the Academy. They go to the closest alley and Five takes Luther’s hand. They teleport inside and end up on the hall of the last floor, where they could look down to the entrance hall. They both position themselves squatting and look around. Their copies must be in their bedrooms, catching up or walking around. They hear close footsteps and hide behind a corner.

Grace passes by just in front of them, but she doesn’t notice. She gets away with the same pace.

“Oh, mom...” Luther mutters. Five feels that pang in his chest too, but he diverts his brother’s attention and points at a gate. Reginald’s bedroom. “You don’t want to get in _there_.”

“Why not?” the other one hisses.

“Because it’s private.”

Five strokes his face and closes his eyes, huffing.

“First of all... How dare you think about _that_ at _this_ moment?” Five protests with exaggerated gestures. “Two, dad is _dead_! It’s madness!”

His last word echoes through the entrance hall and the copies of Diego and Vanya hear it just when Number Two was complaining about the book she published. They look up but don’t see anything. Back on the last floor, the original Luther keeps his hand on the original Five’s mouth. Five is reluctant about that gesture but accepts it. They get away from each other.

“Okay, what would be your plan, then?” he mutters. Luther thinks.

“I remember... the surveillance room had a door. Maybe that door leads to another place. We can’t search in his desk because I think Allison and Klaus are there.”

 _“You think?”_ Five thinks, but he decides not to be so harsh on his brother. He’s trying. Besides, they would need more information before going straight to the desk; and because the copies are around, in the hallways.

Five nods and they go to the surveillance room. Some of the screens show what’s happening right now (like the copies of Luther and Diego in their old rooms) and some others are turned off with recordings from the past. Luckily, there are no cameras _in_ the camera room.

“Should we investigate the cameras?” the big one asks.

“No. Only Pogo has the key to this bedroom, we don’t know how to activate them without it. And it’s better if we don’t mess with them.” They walk towards the dark door of the back of the dark room. “Hold me.”

They hold hands again and Five focuses on going through the door given they’ve never been there, some of them probably didn’t even know there was another door because it was hidden behind a stall. They get inside in a matter of seconds and the space they end up in is totally dark. They take off their glasses and Five uses his flashlight. The room is not as big as they expected. Dark walls, dark shelves and dark tables. There are not even windows. They turn around and see papers stuck to the wall in front of the door. The most outstanding one is the picture of a _triquetra_.

“What is that?” Luther asks.

“It’s a triquetra. It’s the trinity symbol.” he answers. Then, they look at a book with the title _universes and multiverses_ on a table. “Let’s take it.”

“I don’t think-”

“I know you don’t like the idea of taking things with us.” Five notes. “But _we_ didn’t get to this book in our timeline, not even this room, so I guess there won’t be problems for taking this. We need to search for clues, Luther.”

He’s right. The other man thinks about it and when he’s about to say yes, they hear a door being opened, the one of the cameras. It must be Pogo.

“Can you teleport us outside the Academy?”

Five nods and does that same thing. They are now near the wall of the house, around the inner garden with no ceiling that acted like a space for their free time. Talking about free time...

“... do I hear music?” Five asks, frowning.

Luther realizes. He played music in the stereo and danced some minutes, seconds before Five returned to the present. He has no time to explain that because the evening sky above the garden is interrupted by light beams in the middle of the air. That’s when Five realizes, but they don’t say anything. They put their sunglasses back, just in case, and hide themselves better behind the bushes.

Their copies appear out of the door and look at the lights. Like in their timeline, Klaus tries to throw a fire extinguisher at it and causes it to disappear. Then, original Five sees as his other self jumps down just as the beams disappear.

Now, looking at the copy, that sense of watching someone exactly like you but from the past, is more shocking than he anticipated. He stares at himself.

The copies look at the copy of Five, astonished. Like they originally did.

_“Shit.”_

Then, original Luther looks at Five.

“Are you okay?” he whispers. Five snaps out of his trance and nods. He takes his brother’s hand once more and they get out of there. They haven’t much, but they carry with them the book of universes.

**_[“Times Like This”, Foo Fighters]_ **

_It’s times like these you learn to live again_

_It’s times like these you give and give again_

_It’s time like these you learn to love again_

_It’s times like these time and time again_

**~~~**

Despite not listening to more strange noises on their way back, they hurry to their hideout. They turn the lights on and sit around the table. Hazel finally sits down on a chair to fix their briefcase because walking has stolen time from them, so they need it. Diego takes out the blackboard from the kitchen and puts it in front of the TV.

“What do we know?” Vanya asks.

Diego takes a chalk and writes _Handler: powers: machine_ over the list of the events and inside a square. Then, he sits again on the sofa but closer to the board.

“Apparently, she’s obsessed about biology and physics. And treason.” Diego says. “Hazel, what kind of person would want to betray her?”

Hazel huffs.

“Just... everyone, I guess? I don’t know.” he thinks about it for some seconds. “Actually... whenever we mentioned something about family, she gave you a speech about what the Commission accomplishes for the greater good.”

“And?”

“That’s what she always does when she doesn’t want to talk about something. She diverted the conversation.”

“Fine, so...” Allison whispers. “Powers from a machine, treason, family. That’s what we know about her. It’s something, but it’s almost nothing.”

“What do we do with that info?”

Suddenly, right in front of the blackboard Luther and Five teleport back to their hideout. They take a deep breath and look exhausted. They take off their sunglasses and their sweat off.

“What happened?” Allison asks worried, standing up and getting closer to Luther, who sits on a chair. Hazel goes to the kitchen.

“We... We went to the Academy.” Number One starts saying. He accepts the glass of water that Hazel brings. “We waited for all of the copies to get in and we teleported inside. We decided to investigate in a room that was behind a door of the surveillance room.”

“There was another door in that room?” Ben asks.

“Yeah,” Luther says. “I guess I was the only one that knew about that. There were strange things, a lot of books, dozens of symbols... and we found something.”

Luther takes the book out from under his arm and puts it on the table. The others look at it from their positions.

“It’s perfect,” Diego comments pointing at it. “we found out that the Handler was obsessed with physics and all of that stuff, but we don’t know a lot about that.”

They all look at Five. Who hasn’t said anything since they returned. He frowns.

“What?”

“ _What_?” Diego protests. “Come on, man, you’re always rambling out physics, biology. What’s up?”

“You’re affected?” Luther notices.

“Am I _what_?” Five asks as if he had been offended by something very serious.

“When we escaped from that dark room, we landed on the garden and we saw _his_ copy landing from the future, in that exact moment.”

“I’m not _affected_.” he hisses and plays with his own feet. “And, yes, when you run something similar to the Temps Commission, you have to know about quantum physics.”

“Do you remember anything about her family or someone close?”

“Someone close? Family?” he asks. “Not even close. Just people that followed her like poodles.” He sits on the small sofa and accepts Hazel’s water. “Although...”

“Although what?” Diego asks.

“She always talked about keeping an eye even on our own families.”

“We found something about _treason_.” Klaus reminds.

“Always keeping an eye on your own family. Maybe someone hurt her, in her past because she didn’t have anyone close in the Commission.”

They keep silent, trying to think, trying to figure things up, until Klaus stands up and rubs his belly.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m hungry.”

**~~~**

They eat individually (sort of; the bedrooms are really close to each other) some sandwiches and juices that remind them of sweet Adah. They try to talk in peace, things not related to the end of the world or their problems between each other or with themselves. Diego and Klaus try not to think too much about their losses, so they talk to their siblings. Thinking about that, Luther wonders about something he hasn’t mentioned or hasn’t been mentioned at all. He gets close to Allison, on the sofa, eating his sandwich. She looks at him and lets him sit down close.

“How are you?” he asks. She shrugs and scratches her natural hair. The wavy wig is kind of annoying, but she’ll get used to it.

“I don’t know... I haven’t had much time to think about myself.” she mutters.

“Me neither.” he comments with a small downhearted smile that disappears immediately. “Then... I guess you haven’t had time to think about Claire.”

She sighs and tilts her head.

“Actually, Five mentioned her in 1952. We were talking on the porch and he said that I was a good mother.”

She skips the part where Five noticed somehow she used to manipulate her own child. Five is too smart for the smallest details. Maybe he just assumed that she rumored Claire and she slipped it out.

“Really? Five?” he frowns. “That’s surprising.”

“Yeah.” she chuckles. “I mean, it’s _Five_.”

They laugh when Five exclaims he’s listening. Then, they look at each other again. On the other side, Vanya, alone under the window of their bedroom and barely touching her food, Diego gets closer.

“You okay?” he mutters. She nods. “You sure? Ben told me you moved something. Well done.”

“It was just a folder. No big deal.” she shrugs.

“It is.” he insists. “I’m not an expert but mastering big powers start little by little, even if it’s nothing.”

Vanya bows her head. Diego doesn’t hug her; he has never been a physical person that takes any advantage for cuddles, not like Klaus or Allison. He’s willing to do anything for his sister now, but trust needs to be earned. However, he does touch her palm to make her notice he’s there for her, like he did back in 1952.

“Yeah. Thanks.” she whispers. Klaus arrives and takes off his long, white jacket, lying on the bed and swallowing his sandwich. “Hey.”

“Hey, you guys.” Number Four says, playing with the hem of his shirt. “You’re not hand-holding like Luther and Allison, are you?”

Diego and Vanya wrinkle their noses.

“No.” they say at the same time.

“Great. Come what may between them and I’ll support it.” Klaus says, bending a little to take his shoes off and sitting on the mattress once more. He strokes his anklet and smiles. “But I’m not into those things. Girls with a willy, yeah, intersex, yeah, but adopted siblings are untouchable for me. Not into those things. Also, not anymore into _weird_ stuff.”

“Not anymore, huh?” Vanya asks and her brother looks at her.

“I still like those things.” he says slowly. “But thinking about other people feels weird, now.”

“I guess, it’s Dave.” she suggests. “Meeting the person you’ve loved the most changes your perspective.”

Klaus sighs and looks at the anklet. The half of the heart, the one young Dave shared the object with. Diego thinks about Patch. He has no souvenir from her. He frowns. Now comes the typical sentence that says _I didn’t know what I had until it’s gone._

**_[“Madness”, Muse]_ **

_I, I can’t get these memories out of my mind_

_And some kind of madness has started to evolve_

_I, I tried so hard to let you go_

_But some kind of madness is swallowing me whole, yeah_

Still with Vanya listening, Diego spacing out and Klaus thinking, they keep talking.

“I guess.” Klaus echoes. He shakes his head and sits properly on the mattress. “But let’s talk about _you._ How do you feel?”

She moves her head in an uncertain way.

“Better. But I’ve been better.” she answers looking at her blue-ish sleeves. “What are we going to do with... _me_?”

Klaus, being the _physical_ person he is, gets closer to her on the bed, puts his hand on her shoulder and hugs her.

“We have no idea.” he admits, chuckling.

“There were some abandoned industrial units outside the city, close to where we went.” Diego comments sitting on the bed, the only place of the bedroom where they can sit. “What about training there?”

“Training?” she asks, doubtful. “Really?"

“Yeah. You’ve never had a chance to train with us. Let’s change that.”

When Vanya smiles, Diego knows it’s with honesty.

“Okay. But... I still don’t know _anything_ about my powers, just focusing on sounds and all...”

“Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.”

Ben doesn’t show up in the conversation at any point, but he listens to it. It’s tough, being alive when they went back in time and now being dead again. It’s like having won the lottery and losing it because of just one number. Of course he was used to going through hurdles like that back when he was alive, but it’s still hard. He’s going through being dead all over again.

**~~~**

Unluckily, Luther and Five tell the others that they need to go back, at least, one more time on this first day. It would seem ambitious, but they make the others realize they only have eight more days. Diego decides to go with them. Hazel stays in the hideout, trying to think about the clues they have so far and finishing the briefcase’s repair.

The others try to go to the industrial units Diego mentioned earlier to see if it’s discrete enough for them. It has to be closed (not visible inside because that would attract someone who passes by), dark but bright inside (with electricity included) and away from the rest of the units, just in case. And, then again, just in case, at least, one of them outside for watching the area.

In the meantime, the three of them walk discreetly near the Academy and enter with Five’s powers. They are in one of the hallways of the bedrooms.

“Why are we here?” Diego asks uneasy.

“It’s mid-afternoon.” he answers. “Our copies are in the funeral.”

They walk silently in front of Reginald’s office and see there’s a camera pointing at the door but not inside, as Pogo once told Luther. The door is closed and locked by Pogo, so they enter with Five’s powers again and, because the cameras would reveal them if they just go to the door, trying to find a way in.

Reginald knew about the apocalypse. Did he know they would end up there all over again?

“I don’t like being here. I’m tense.” Diego mutters, watching outside the window.

“Imagine the first time around and with Luther in your ear all the time.”

Luther doesn’t like Five’s comment, but he keeps looking for clues in the shelves behind the desk. He watches the titles on the spines of the books.

 _“How are you guys doing?”_ Hazel asks in the talkie. _"I’m bad here. It’s hard to think about this shit when you’re alone."_

“Not much info yet.” Diego answers. “Just papers, papers, books, more books, drawings... The shitty thing about this is that his calligraphy is incomprehensible. Like doctors’ calligraphy.”

_“That’s nothing, Cha Cha wrote like in Arabic.”_

Diego would have chuckled if he hadn’t mentioned that woman. Just as he clenches his jaw, he sees Luther taking a book.

“What is it?” he asks.

Luther reads the title.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Five asks, turning towards him.

“Yes. It says _nothing_.” He shows them the cover page. He opens it without touching too much, just in case, and takes a look. “It’s just one of the many books about our training, powers and night analysis. God, did Ben use to cry when he went to sleep?”

“Apparently.” Diego says and continues on the pages. “Here it says, in a new title, _about things learned previously._ Previously?”

“Previously?” Five asks frowning. He takes off his sunglasses, meaning that he’s more serious than usual. He doesn’t like where this is going. “Before what? Before us? Before the Academy?”

“I don’t know.” Luther keeps reading with attention, the same attention when he turns pages. They’re not sure, but maybe the copies could figure out there are identical fingerprints, so it’s better not risking. “Here it says... _Don’t trust them again_. Them? Them who?”

They think quickly. The copies of Luther and Diego must be fighting already in the middle of the funeral. They don’t have much time. However, when a possible theory comes out, they can’t help staying still in their places and holding their breaths.

“The Commission? Maybe?” Diego suggests carefully. Five sighs and takes a step back.

“Does that mean that dad worked...?”

There’s a noise downstairs. Luther and Diego get closer to Five, who teleports them all outside. They carry with them another book, the book of _nothing_.

**~~~**

“How was the industrial unit?” Hazel asks when Allison, Klaus, Ben and Vanya come back. They shrug and sit on the chairs. Vanya and Klaus sit on the sofa.

“We didn’t do anything, just looking around.” Allison answers, taking off her wig. “A person walking his dog almost saw us around the zone, but it’s okay for training, I guess.”

They’re scared when the three men that were out land on their asses in the living room. Vanya almost startles and Klaus gets scared, that being the moment when an old lamp breaks. They don’t pay too much attention to it.

“Jesus, don’t do that again!” Klaus stands up with a hand on his chest. “We have to find a way to _knock on the door_.”

“We don’t have keys, so it’s better to always have it locked.” Hazel says. He then turns his head to the ones that have just arrived. “What happened in the Academy?”

Diego stands up and kicks the wall. That means bad. Luther lies his back on the wall and Five stays on the floor, looking at the ceiling.

“Guys.” Allison says getting closer to Luther, who bows his head. “What is it?”

Luther gets closer to the table and puts the other book on the table, opening in the horrific page.

“Dad worked in the Commission.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s shorter than the last one, but what are we going to do about it?  
> Again. Not conceited, but proud


	4. 2x03: "Blank Page"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What about information about Reginald Hargreeves and his past?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third episode | Song: "Blank Page", by Christina Aguilera

_I know there’s hurt, I know there’s pain_

_But people change, Lord knows I’ve been no saint_

_In my own way, regret choices I’ve made_

_How do I say I’m sorry, how do I say I’m sorry_...

**~~~**

After the news Luther gives to the others, he sits down on a chair close to the bedrooms, almost one yard to the living room. The others try to process the information he has just given and, after a while, Allison is the first one that breaks the ice.

“Wait...” she mutters, racking her brain and nervously scratching the arm with her scar over her blue shirt. “Are you... Are you serious? Are you sure?”

Luther sighs and nods.

“The book. Look.”

They get closer to the book. The folder with science and the machine powers that Vanya got in the abandoned headquarters is yellow-ish. The book Five and Luther got when they went to the Academy the first time in the day is black and this last book is brown. They read the page and the piece of the page that says _don’t trust them again, not this time, not the same mistake_. Meaning that he worked with someone dangerous, that he changed his mind about it and left the group. Maybe not the Commission itself but something very similar. Perhaps, something involved with the Handler, you never know.

“We-We don’t know, I mean, maybe he worked in some illegal organization, but we don’t know if it was the Commission-” Allison says, but Diego sits on his bed, the right one.

“It’s logical. We know the Handler felt betrayed by someone, maybe it was because dad left this group.” he hisses. “We’re not hundred percent sure about this. But this... this could be true.”

It feels too horrible, so it must be true. Now it’s when they keep silent. Five is still on the floor without saying anything, like when he landed with Luther at the beginning of this afternoon.

“Okay.” Hazel says breaking silence for the second time. He takes out the board and writes _Comm: Handler & Regi _ on the top right and a _90%._

“What does the percentage mean?” Klaus asks him.

“That we’re sure about this revelation but not confirmed.” he answers. “There’s no way of figuring it out.”

 _There is, actually,_ Klaus thinks bowing his head. For that, he would have to go to this _infraworld_ or _afterlife_ in order to search for Reginald and ask him. But he would have to be hurt on purpose, be on the line between life and death, because the last time it happened, it happened by accident. Besides, he’s being told once and over again to trust himself to use his powers better, but how the hell is he going to do that if the end is nigh?

“What time is it?” Five questions.

“7 pm. What were you doing around this time?”

They try to say it accurately: Luther was talking with Allison about Claire. Diego was trying to recover quickly with his previous fight against his brother in the funeral, Klaus was trying to search for useful things to sell in order to buy something to eat or for drugs, Five was trying to get some decent coffee around the cafés of the zone, Ben was walking around as a ghost and Vanya was already heading back to her apartment.

“If you fellas need to have a mission together alone,” Hazel starts. “I’ll try to keep the copies under surveillance. Maybe to make sure the events still happen as they should be apart from the ones we have to prevent.”

“Everything has to happen exactly?” Klaus asks, worried and anxious. He frowns and feels a pit in his stomach. “ _Everything._ ”

“It’s recommendable.” the man states. “For example, in the fight of the theatre, your copy still needs to be sober. How were you sober?”

“Because I wanted to see Dave again.” he says in a low voice. He starts to think. Maybe... It’s crazy, but maybe... No, it’s crazy. Maybe it couldn’t work. Unless...

“So, you have to travel with the briefcase to 1968.”

“Dave still dies.” he says with a stuttering voice. He stands up and breathes deeply. The others try to comfort him, but he wants some alone time. He stands up and sighs with a sutter. “Five, can you take me outside?”

“I’m tired.” he says. He’s not that tired, but Five wants Klaus to be there in order to search for clues, they need him, they have no time for breakdowns.

“I’ll unlock the door, wait.” Hazel, however, offers. Klaus accompanies him to the entrance hall and, after some seconds, he leaves the apartment. He keeps Ben tangible inside the hideout. “Oof, the sweethearts, they limit our actions.” he comments. “What do we do now?”

“We have to figure out if dad worked on the same group as the Handler and if it’s the Commission.”

“Right now?” Ben questions.

“What?” Five asks. “Do you want to sleep? Are you tired? You’re a ghost, Ben.”

Ben clenches his jaw. He _is_ tired, especially being tangible. Five is Five and he will always be like that even if in the future he is more sensitive with matters towards the feelings of other people, but even so, he is a dick. Five became a whole other person when he travelled to the future. He was his second best friend before he left. Where the hell is Five? Not **Five**. _Five._

“I’m okay, actually, I’m a night owl.” Diego says. “We could try to go through the door of the headquarters we visited this morning, if you come with me.”

“Okay. Hazel, are you coming?”

Hazel, Diego and Five go to the abandoned headquarters and the others remain alone. They try to figure more things out, but nothing comes; they’re too tired and it’s only the first day, which hasn’t even finished. It’s close to 9 pm and the Sun is going down, creating a beautiful pink canvas. Vanya stares at the window, where she can see the birds flying. This would be a perfect moment to practice with her violin. But the last time she used her violin being aware of her powers, she destroyed everything. She still feels like an urge to express her passion. She wants to express herself with something new.

She looks at her hand and realizes she has been creating hang-nails on her own fingers since their last few days, between missions throughout the decades and after arriving on this first day. She needs something to relax, even if Five says that there is no time for that. She loves him, but he’s out of his mind.

“You have hang-nails.” Allison says, arriving, and Vanya looks at her sister. She is standing on the doorless door frame and has a comb in her hand. She sits on the bed and Vanya makes space despite being enough.

“Yeah, well, it’s not the right time for us to be calm.” she says, gulping, stopping hurting her fingers when Allison sits behind her and starts to comb her hair. That’s some relaxing time she needed. It’s perfect. “I know... I know trust is not easy, especially with me.”

Allison frowns.

“Honey, it’s _our_ fault we’re in this mess, not yours.”

“Even if that’s true, which is not, I mean that... I wouldn’t even trust myself one hundred percent with these abilities.”

Allison doesn’t say anything with that comment. Instead, she keeps combing hair for some seconds and starts making a braid.

“We’ll figure it out, don’t worry.” Allison reassures. Vanya doubts.

“You’re always saying we’ll figure things out. But there’s no time, we have eight days and this is just the first one.”

She’s totally right, so Allison keeps quiet again.

**_[“Overture/All That Jazz”, Catherine Zeta-Jones]_ **

_Come on babe_

_Why don’t_ _we paint the town?_

_And all that jazz_

_I’m gonna rouge my knees_

_And roll my stockings down_

_And all that jazz_

**~~~**

Klaus has been outside for half an hour. It would be a good time for coming back to the apartment.

He hasn’t tried to stop himself from thinking about his own problems. When he began to do it, it felt like shit, but he needed some alone time. Before making a mistake or running away more than he should, he asks for a cigarette to a stranger and smokes a little bit. That’s when he stops his obsessive thoughts and feels just a little bit better. He takes the mental note of asking Hazel to buy some cigarettes in the market. He feels less worse. The cigarette calms his nerves and the wind rounds him like a reassuring hug. Something like this, his back against a streetlight and smoking, would be a typical moment where Dave would come close to him in the middle of a training break.

 _“You shouldn’t smoke too much.” Dave would say with a teasing tone. This would happen especially when they already knew about each other’s feelings, days after that_ specific _night in the disco. By then, he still hadn’t told Dave about why he was smoking that much. That would happen two months later._

_“Eat me.” he would respond._

_However, that’s when Dave would offer him another cigarette and he would accept. And then, if they were lucky and there weren’t too many people around, they would kiss under the shadow of a tree._

When he finishes his cigarette, he turns it off by stepping on it and something diverts his attention. There’s a man around his fifties with gray hair wearing a blindfold around his eyes and a strange outfit composed of blackish blue garments; he’s making a gesture with his hand. Then, the man turns all the other way around on the front sidewalk, between walking fast and running and looking everywhere around. He was very close to their portal despite being on the sidewalk at the other side of the road. Klaus tries to follow his rhythm but still on his same sidewalk, just in case, and bending his body a bit behind the parked cars.

That’s when the ground under his feet starts moving and forces him to stop walking. He frowns and sees that no building is shaking or the cars aren’t affected, so it’s not a normal earthquake. It’s just happening to him, so it’s not some building under construction. The ground, even with concrete, moves like a quicksand and it rises him up a little bit. Klaus decides to run where he came from. Despite returning safe to their portal, he has to fight against that thing and make it lose sight of him.

What is _it_?

Once he enters the portal, he bumps into a pretty lady wearing something short, but he doesn’t say sorry. This needs to be told to his siblings as soon as possible.

**~~~**

Hazel, Diego and Five walk through the corridor because Five hasn’t been there and can’t teleport underground, through land. That would be something good to practice after the apocalypse. They arrive at the door again and this time is easier to open it than in the morning. When they got out of there, they closed it in case.

The three of them don’t light the bulbs of the ceiling and go straight to the door in the wall at the back immediately, where Five brightens with his flashlight. Hazel tries to open it manually, just in case.

“Apart from the _treason_ book, what did you find here?” Five asks, trying to look at something around the darkness.

“Well, random things, like inventions from the association, people that followed the Handler hopelessly... and things we don’t understand.”

“Like what?”

“Like physics.”

Five looks at Diego.

“I know about physics, you know that. I could explain it to all of you.”

“... No can do.” Hazel says. Like that morning, he can’t open the door. “Five?”

The mentioned one nods and takes both men’s hands. He focuses on the door and they go through it. Once they’re on the other side they stay still because of one simple fact.

“Is it just me or I can’t see shit?” Hazel says in the middle of the darkness. Five lets go of their hands and turns on his flashlight. This room is larger and the walls are exactly the same, but it has no shelves or computer desks.

“It’s a corridor?” Diego asks. Five nods. “What should we do?”

Hazel points at another door at the back of the room. They go through it once more and end up in a lighter room once they turn on the lights. This room is similar to the first one of the morning, but the shelves are locked behind covers, like closed closets, and it doesn’t have computers or desks. It looks like a normal library that happens to be abandoned. Hazel wonders why these places haven’t been destroyed.

“Can we open them?” Diego brings up about the closed closets with folders.

“I don’t know.” Hazel mutters, looking around.

“Maybe...” Five advances towards a shelf and analyzes it. He looks it up and down and frowns. “They’re dusty.”

“So what? The papers of the first room were also dusty.” Diego reports.

“Well, more dusty than usual.” he corrects himself. “Meaning, perhaps, that just the Handler or few others could open. But what does it have?”

“No idea.”

Diego tries to break the glass of one of them with his elbow, but it turns out that the glass is thicker than they thought. He strokes his own arm because of the hit. He didn’t get an important scar in their missions throughout the past, but he did get lots of bruises.

“I have an idea.” Five says, walking backwards.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

Five cracks his neck and runs towards the closet they’re facing. He teleports to somewhere Diego and Hazel can’t see, but in the next second he re-appears next to them with some books in his hands; some of the things fall to the floor.

“What did you?” Diego says, picking up the fallen books. They leave them on a small table.

“I teleported inside the closet.”

“You _what_? There’s no space inside!”

“I know, but I teleported quickly. I only got these ones.”

Damn it, Five.

They start to read the books. It’s the same about chemistry, biology and physics. Then, they read a page that starts with the title _infinite multiverses._ They read about worlds, parallel universes and multiverses.

“What’s a multiverse?”

Five opens and closes his mouth several times. Then, he keeps quiet.

“Oh, you don’t know?” Hazel asks, mocking. Diego opens his mouth, but there are no words. He remembers a night before one of Grace’s lullabies that...

“... I _do_ know!” he protests. “I just, it’s hard to explain, even for me. Parallel universes are _created_ when a person goes back in time and changes important events.”

“Like us?”

“Like us. We’re in a parallel universe, not in ours. That’s why the _copies_ in this world aren’t actually copies.” he says while reading. “Parallel multiverses... have their own parallel universes but with different events.”

Diego doesn’t say anything. He was right, it’s better to talk about it when they’re together. It will be easier to reflect on it when they’re not alone.

“I... I don’t like this...” Diego confesses while rubbing his eyes.

“Come on.” his brother cheers up. “It’s better if we’re not here too much time.”

“No, I mean, not about this exactly.” he mutters. “I mean... if dad actually worked in the Commission and someone betrayed your old chief, so does that mean that he and the Handler were family?”

Five opens and closes his mouth several times again. He hadn’t thought about that, he wonders if the others have done that too.

“That’s why we have to keep investigating.” Five makes sure, looking at his eyes. He hates that idea too. “If you don’t like the idea of them being family, we have to keep doing this.”

“Do you?”

“Do I _what_?”

“Do you think they’re family?”

Five rubs the bridge of his nose and sighs. Apparently, his brother won’t give up on this topic anytime soon.

“I don’t know, Diego. I don’t like that idea, though.”

Diego continues with his reading. Good; Five even hates the idea of Reginald and the Handler being on a close circle of people. And them? Family? That thought is unnerving. If they’re both cruel individually... together?

They’re not lucky with clues this time. They don’t carry many of the books just in case, just an encrypted paper that needs more than one day to be analyzed. This old paper looks like being pulled up from a diary and its encryption consists of lines and numbers that don’t have any sense for them. Five and Hazel know just a little bit about encryption but not enough.

They go back to the hideout. Five makes them appear in the middle of an alley near the portal and they all see strange fissures on the sidewalk twenty yards away from the portal. Weird. They enter the building and teleport to the apartment. Once they’re inside, they notice immediately that the others look distressed and worried, staring at the wall and, then, at them when they land before the door frame of one bedroom.

“What is it?” Hazel dares to ask first.

Klaus, sitting on an old crate close to the kitchen, stands up.

“I saw... something _big_ on the street.”

“You shouldn’t have gone alone.” Five comments.

“Let him finish.” Luther tells. Vanya is surprised by that kind of intervention, especially from _him,_ someone who thought Klaus is a joke itself. Maybe, Luther is really trying to fix things for real.

“The thing is...” Klaus continues. He tries not to scratch his hands out of nervousness. “I was on the street and I was about to come back when I saw a strange dude running on the other sidewalk and, seconds later, the land under my feet started to... _move._ Like... Like if a giant worm was trying to kill me!” He makes an exaggerated gesture with his hand. “And there was this old dude with weird, medieval clothes.”

“Wait, the ground of the sidewalk was moving?” Five frowns.

“Yes and there wasn’t anybody around me at that time, it’s dark.”

“Perhaps they waited for you to move, to be alone, to attack you.”

“Excuse, who are they?” Ben interrupts. It’s a good question.

“No idea.” the old (young) man says, racking his brain. He taps his foot on the floor. “Oh, no...” he mutters and then turns to Hazel. “Have you ever heard Jack talking about how it would be great to have an _underground analyzer_ or some shit like that?”

Hazel shakes his head but not denying.

“I just overheard it, I think.”

“Jack worked on the area of natural disasters that aren’t actually natural but caused by the Commission.” he summarizes. “Jack must have invented it already. The dude Klaus saw must have been him.”

“Is it too dangerous?” Vanya questions.

“Well, it just moved the ground for me.” Klaus reminds. “But that thing was too close to the portal. They must know we’re at least in this neighborhood.”

In conclusion, they can come here anytime soon.

“You have something?” Allison breaks the ice again. Hazel puts the paper on the table.

“Well... Does anyone know about encryption?”

Some of them try to read through the symbols, but it’s impossible.

“We also thought about one thing.” Diego interrupts and Five stares at him, frowning. “What?”

“Don’t.”

“No. They need to think about this possibility.”

“Which possibility?” Luther frowns.

“I don’t think it’s a good time for this.” Five insists.

“I know it’s not a good time!” Diego exclaims. “But then again, when it is?”

Five nods. He knows he’s right.

“What is going on?” Luther asks once more.

Diego sighs and looks at them, sitting between Klaus and Vanya.

“We thought... We remembered that the Handler was betrayed by someone close, in her family. And Reginald worked in the Commission. What if they’re...?”

Luther stands up and goes to the kitchen. Allison follows him and tries to convince him not to punch at the wall.

“You gotta be shitting me.” Klaus mutters covering his face with his hands. Vanya bows her head and Ben sits on a bed despite not being tangible in this moment. Luther punches the wall of the kitchen and comes back with Allison, but they don’t sit. Five doesn’t even want to talk right now. “You gotta be kidding me! That’s all we needed!”

“They could _not_ be related, maybe the Handler was talking about another person that betrayed her despite that... Reginald worked with her.” Diego tries to read between the lines with the situation. Everything can be possible.

“Could be that it’s not even the Commission your father worked in.” Hazel suggests. “They probably worked together in another group.”

“How could we figure that out?” Five questions.

“Figuring out more about Reginald Hargreeves.”

They don’t like that idea at all, not right after having in mind the thought of _him_ and _her_ being related.

“This is pessimistic.” Ben mutters, stating the obvious.

“Of course it is, Benny.” Klaus says after taking a sip of a tasteless juice. “And this is just the first day.”

This time, despite being the way he is, Five sighs and gets closer to his bed.

“You have to sleep.” he whispers. “To feel better tomorrow.”

 _I hope so,_ he thinks to himself.

**~~~**

When Vanya wakes up, she goes to the bathroom and, on her way back, he bumps into Hazel, who’s eating a cookie that tastes like nothing because it’s the cheapest thing he could find in the grocery store.

“Hey.” he mutters and she just moves her hand shyly. She hasn’t been necessarily close to him and he knows that, but he’s reverent with her. “How was your second night?”

She shrugs and sits on a chair, putting it close to the table.

“Fine, I think.” she says nonchalantly. Hazel kindly serves her one glass of orange juice and she takes a sip. “I guess... today we have _training._ ”

“The sooner you all start, the better.” he comments, enjoying his cookie. Then, he chuckles. “I remember when the Handler told me and my partner to protect you, in the apocalypse. That shit was crazy.”

Vanya raises her eyebrows. It still sounds weird.

“Really?”

“Yeah...” he says, skipping the explanation that it was because it was in case her siblings killed her before she caused the apocalypse. But Vanya knows that and Hazel knows she’s anything but stupid. “Man, it’s been only weeks since that, among decades and now back here.”

“Yeah.”

“How do you feel? About the future?”

If Vanya doesn’t trust most of her siblings yet, it’s harder to trust someone that worked in the organization that is trying to kill them. If the Commission gets to eliminate the original Hargreeves, the apocalypse still happens and the copies can’t go back to the past this time because the Commission has learnt the lesson. Perhaps killing the copy of Five for them to die once more. The apocalypse would happen again. It sounds scary.

Vanya shakes her head and drinks the juice just as Luther passes by them and goes to the bathroom. Hazel looks at him, but she doesn’t.

“What if I’m not helpful in fights?” she mumbles. “Or _the opposite_ , what if I get out of control again?”

“I don’t know anything about your powers, neither do you and neither do your siblings.” he states. “But I do know that this time they’re willing to do anything for you.”

“I know. But that’s also bad.” she whispers.

“Why?”

She thinks about it.

“They’ll forget about themselves. They’re already doing that, look at Klaus, he thinks that worrying about his problems makes him selfish.”

Hazel nods.

“Why don’t you tell him that?”

She moves her head, hesitating.

“Look at us, Hazel. We’re not the best at talking.”

“You’re right. But you can start changing that little by little.”

“Like doing what?”

Just when Luther goes from the bathroom to the kitchen, Hazel points at him with his head. Vanya doesn’t like the idea of talking to Luther _at all_. But it’s a start.

“I’ll try.”

When they all wake up, they start having breakfast and put together what has happened to their copies around the night:

After Luther and Allison talked about Claire, they went to sleep in their bedrooms; Five attacked people from the Commission in the place Agnes worked in, escaped, then going to talk with Vanya in her apartment and leaving; and Diego was trying to figure out about the massacre in the café by his own, for then being caught by Patch and she decided to let him go. Klaus doesn’t remember, but Ben tells him that they were in Diego’s car in the night, just before Diego went to figure out what happened in the café after he dropped him back to the Academy.

Now, the original siblings divide themselves again. Diego, Allison and Hazel are planning to disguise themselves as workers from the Commission in order to talk to the copy of Five to figure out which of the workers from the Meritech Prosthetics _could_ be involved with the Handler because the original one has forgotten exactly the name of the guy who works with her. It’s a very risky plan because, knowing how smart and clever he is, this copy could immediately suspect them. He probably is going to suspect anyway, but they need to move on their investigation. The original plan is intercepting copy-Five when he goes to take his mannequin from the department store, around evening. And, because of the fact that Five is quick-witted, the original one is going to be hidden in a corner to make sure everything ends up alright in that conversation while the talkies are on. For that, Diego, Allison and Hazel are dressing themselves with some similar suits the workers use in the Commission; they asked them to some immigrants in exchange for food.

On the other side, Luther, Klaus, Ben and Vanya are going to the most distant industrial unit (and the most discrete one) to train or to try training. It’s around 10 am when they split.

**~~~**

With dark suits and white shirts as similar as possible, Diego, Allison and Hazel are around a corner close to the department store after Five guides them there.

“Is this where you got your mannequin?” Allison asks Five, who looks at the gate of the place at the other side of the road. They’re hiding under the shadow of a streetlight.

“Yeah. Her name was Dolores, by the way.” he mutters wrinkling his nose. He can’t just imagine being with a woman. It sounds selfish, but it feels better being listened than listening. “In around two hours, my copy is going there. Before you all get closer to him behave different, talk different, stand different.”

“How?” Diego asks.

“I don’t know. Try a different accent.”

“British!” Hazel picks.

“Okay, maybe I could impersonate one of my old performances back when I was an actress.” Allison thinks. She wonders what she’s going to do as a job if they solve all of this. Diego is the one who takes a long time in thinking something.

“Wait! I know sign language.”

“Really?” Five says. “I didn’t know that. You could use it in front of me... in front of the copy.”

They wait enough time until they see a small flash of light and the copy appearing in the corner the closest to the store. There he is, his other self looking around, making sure nobody is looking. Five is almost affected by that again, just like yesterday at midday, but he has to take a deep breath to push through it.

“Go! Guys, go!”

The three of them cross the road quickly, trying to seem evil or, at least, _rebel_ with their glasses, their scarves and their briefcase, the most similar one they found in their apartment building to pretend better. Hazel has already fixed the real briefcase, but Luther has taken it to the industrial unit. They walk on the sidewalk and bump into the corner where the other Five is hiding; it takes a bare second; Five’s copy notices them and snaps. He looks like he’s going to run away anytime soon because in the original timeline he was being hunted by the Commission; he was/is on the defensive.

“Wait! Are ya Five Hargreeves?” Allison asks him in a typical accent of a shantytown place, pretending to smoke a cigarette she took from the immigrants. She puffs and sighs lazily. “Don’t go away, man. We have a question, nothing to do with ya.”

“What the hell do you want?” he hisses on the defensive.

“We have a mission about science... research? I think? Right, Luis?” Diego makes a sign language that consists of moving the right fist while nodding, which means yes. This Five isn’t even close to trust them right now. His breath is fast and his fists are closed. “We need the help of other co-workers that are participating in the _Marytech_ building.”

“Meritech Prosthetics.” Hazel corrects shaking his head, with his fake accent and pretending to be in a really bad mood.

The copy keeps his mouth shut, analyzing the three of them.

“Why do you need a person from the Commission that works there?”

“Ya know the Handler, right?” Allison asks with sarcasm. “When in the goddamn world she tells the reasons for her plans?”

Five nods, giving her the reason.

“You’re right.” he says, still unconvinced. “Has... she mentioned me recently?”

They reflect on it. They’re going to pretend that the Handler hasn’t told them to catch him, otherwise he would try to discover them or run away.

“No, nothing at all.” Hazel answers, shrugging. “Solely that we had to warn her about your position if we saw you, but that’s none of our business. We’re asking this to the first person we’ve seen.”

Five keeps quiet again.

“I don’t know exactly which people, if there are any.” he finally speaks. “Just that a guy always asks for night working time, perhaps for commercializing with the black market or something.”

“Do you remember his name?” Hazel insists.

That’s why they’re here. This Five must have a more recent memory from the Commission than the original one. After time-travelling and space-jumping too many times, the simplest details are forgotten.

“No...” the copy answers. “Maybe Teddy...?”

“Teddy?” Allison cheers him up. “Tommy? Toby?”

“Todd!” the copy snaps. “Todd... Pace...? Packton?”

Diego makes sign gestures for _Perkins._ When Five shakes his head, he does another one for _Parker_ and, then, Five nods.

“Yeah, I think. I’m still not one hundred percent sure.” he mutters.

“Okay, thank you.” Allison says, smashing another cigarette on the floor. “Really.”

“You must be newbies.”

“Of course, darling.” Hazel comments nonchalantly. “We owe her some things. We don’t understand anything from this.”

The copy shrugs.

“Neither do I.”

The three of them get away just as the copy teleports inside the closed store to get his mannequin. Then, they reunite with the original Five, who looks at them with attentive eyes.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Allison answers, cleaning the sweat off her forehead, cringing at that sensation. “He suspects, but we knew he was going to do that.”

“You didn’t tell us you had doubts.” Hazel jokes and Five doesn’t understand. “The copy has told us he doesn’t understand anything.”

Five opens his mouth but doesn’t say anything. He wants to argue that he doesn’t have doubts, but they need to be honest with each other. He sighs, instead.

“What now?” Diego brings up.

“We... We go to the library, if there’s any info about this Todd Parker.”

**~~~**

“This one?” Ben asks, hesitating. They’re all looking around the empty and discrete industrial unit they have found. It’s not comfortable at all, but it’s something, at least for these days. It’s not the shiniest thing in the world, but it’s not that dark. “This is spooky, like our apartment. And I’m a ghost.”

Vanya gets to laugh softly and, at least, Ben is happy to see her smile. Anything for her.

“What about stretching?” Klaus says, jumping into the center of the space and doing weird warm-up poses. “No? Come on, guys!”

“Powers are not like sports.” Vanya comments.

“What do _you_ know?”

Ben and Luther stare at his brother, frowning. Klaus bows his head.

“Sorry, Van.”

She shrugs. If that comment had been worse than locking her in a vault in the middle of a breakdown.

“Maybe a warm-up is a good idea.” Luther suggests. He watches as his three siblings stretch their muscles, even Ben now that he’s tangible after Klaus concentrates some seconds.

“Nothing?” Klaus asks him. Luther shakes his head.

“Well? What do I have to do? I’m useless.” he says in a neutral tone. He still hasn’t thought about how he really feels about his ability. “With the serum dad gave me, I can’t use my powers or, at least, not that much.”

Vanya didn’t know he felt that way. But, then again, like she told Hazel in breakfast, _they don’t talk much._ Thinking about it this way, Luther is like her because she used to feel useless when there were fights in their childhood, even more useless when Ben died.

“Maybe you need to warm-up too. Explore it.” she says.

Luther glances at his sister. That is the person _he_ locked up. A person that is telling him to train with them, a someone who wouldn’t dare to hurt anybody. Yes, she tried to kill them in the middle of her cataclysm, but not before _they_ tried to attack her first. That wouldn’t have happened if he had let her explain from the beginning. Like he thought in1952, just because her powers are dangerous doesn’t mean _she_ is.

“Okay. I’ll try.”

They warm-up a couple of minutes until they feel ready. Luther even feels his muscles warmer, something he senses when he uses his powers. He didn’t feel _that_ useless in their missions through past decades and he doesn’t feel useless right now that he was practicing with some heavy rafters around there.

“Are you still solid?” Luther asks Ben, who nods. “Can you lift something?”

Ben looks around. There’s nothing but dust on the concrete floor and carton boxes. He walks towards them in a corner at some yards.

“They’re empty.” he informs and lifts two of them. “There’s nothing.”

“Go outside and try to find something.” the big guy suggests. Ben leaves through the only exit and returns through the same hole with a big rock on his hands. “Good. Are you feeling something, Klaus?”

He shrugs.

“No, man. No more tired, no lazier. He has to use his powers for _me_ to notice something, like in the theater.”

“Fine. Ben, can you move that rock with your abilities?”

It’s nothing different as in their childhood training, but it feels nothing similar at the same time. Ben leaves the rock on the floor and, after Klaus manages to concentrate by putting his hand together like in a mediation pose, the Horror makes his thing. While _Mario and Luigi_ practise on their own, Luther turns to his sister. Vanya still doubts about him and she will take long in their trust. But, at least, they’re both trying.

“What do you know about your powers?” he asks.

“I... Everything that Harold _taught_ me.” she mutters with a pang in her chest. “But... I don’t know why, but I feel like that’s not valid.”

“It’s not valid.” he agrees. “He wasn’t helping you, he was manipulating you.”

“Yeah, well, he wasn’t the only one who did.”

Luther thinks she’s talking about him, but Vanya was talking about Allison. She doesn’t tell that because he would overprotect her and, despite the close apocalypse, she needs her own space. She doesn’t want Luther to accuse Allison in the worst moment possible.

“Yeah, about that...” he sighs. “I’m sorry. We’re sorry.”

Vanya shakes her head, gulping harsh. Her eyes shiver.

“You... You know that’s not enough, right? I-I know I’m being oversensitive, but-”

“I know that’s not enough.” he interrupts. Luther doesn’t insist that she’s not sensitive, because she is, but that’s not something bad. “But we have to move on. What do you know about your abilities?”

Vanya thinks for some seconds while Ben is playing with the rock thanks to his tentacles. Klaus laughs in the distance.

“Sounds.” she answers. “I have to focus on sounds around me and channeling that energy into myself. I thought you knew that.”

 _I thought you knew that because you locked me in the soundless vault,_ but she doesn’t say that. Luther knows.

“No, I just...” he mutters. _I just locked you up without knowing anything_. Truth to be told, he realizes that Vanya is greater than she knows because she got to listen to something in that soundproof vault. “Go on.”

“Those sounds create an emotion in me. The way I create that energy depends on the emotion.”

“Like anger?” he dares to ask.

That surprises his sister. She thought he wouldn’t mention anything when their world was ending.

“Yeah, like anger. There are more obviously, like fear, sadness or love.”

“Okay. I don’t know, just focus on the sound of the wind as a first exercise.”

She wonders if all kinds of telekinesis work based on emotions. After closing her eyes, Vanya focuses on the wind while Ben and Klaus are throwing a small stone to each other, like if they were playing volleyball. She has already done this back in 1952, when she was alone, and in certain moments throughout the decades. It should be easy.

She breathes in and out and, then, she’s listening to the soft breeze of wind around midday. Luther doesn’t want to interrupt, so he doesn’t say anything at the moment; he just asks for his brothers to stop for some minutes. Vanya starts to focus on the sound of the morning breeze touching the metal of the high, sloppy ceiling. She listens to some of the birds that fly around there, to some of the sounds of her own body, like her breathing or her circulation.

_Last time you used your powers, you fucked it all up._

Vanya grinds her teeth and opens her eyes, so the wind outside stops moving fast. She rubs her eyes and Klaus gets closer.

“You good?”

She breathes and sighs. She opens her eyes and touches her nape.

“I can’t... I can’t forget. The thing in the theater...”

Ben gets closer too and puts his hand on her shoulder softly. She looks at him with pity in her eyes. She looks exhausted.

“Vanya. As someone who has died with his own powers, trust me when I’m saying this...” he states. “Don’t forget the times you got out of control.”

“What?” Luther asks, frowning. Vanya doesn’t understand either. Klaus knows. Someone would typically say to forget her mistakes and move on, like Five would. But no, Ben is telling her not to do that.

“Trust me,” he continues. “you don’t have to forget about those times. But you do have to keep them at bay. Keep calm.”

“And how do I do that?”

“Having in mind that you’re not alone. You were alone but not anymore.”

Vanya remembers all of the times that he and Klaus were preparing for a mission, Klaus telling her that she couldn’t go with them because she didn’t have powers and Ben just staring, not saying anything in her defense.

Yes. She was alone. But not anymore.

When Vanya closes her eyes again and focuses on the wind, this time the sound of the breeze increases slower, but it doesn’t end at the moment. The breeze she creates makes a small whirlwind around her and it makes it bigger, just a little bit, some yards beyond where her brothers are. _The end of the world, remember you caused it_. She grinds her teeth but sighs while squeezing her hands in fists and overcomes that feeling. _Keep calm_ , Ben has told her.

She feels tired. She has to take a deep breath to recover. When she opens her eyes the under-control wind around the industrial unit stops.

Because of the fact that some things never change, Klaus applauds her and Ben nods with pride. Luther looks at her but not afraid or the same way he looked at her after locking her up, while she was begging to get out of there.

He looks proud too.

Luther can be any of the worst: selfish, overprotective, acts before he thinks, even clumsy and brutish at the same time. However, he can also be the other extreme: sweet, severe, overprotective (in the good sense) and proud of others when they work hard. Trust is not earned fast but little by little. This is one of those first steps.

“Did I do okay?”

“You were amazing, girl!” Klaus exclaims, uncaring if anyone strolling around hears him. “Congrats.”

Ben nods with pride. Luther speaks.

“Good job.” he states.

**~~~**

“How long we gonna take?” Allison asks once they’re in the library, in the computers. Five is searching info in one of them while the others cover the screen, looking at it.

“Your weird accent is still on.” Five comments with sarcasm. “Wait some minutes. This computer is slow, even in Meritech’s web page.”

“We didn’t have enough money for a NASA computer.” Diego spits with sarcasm too.

“Maybe I can get more cash in the bank in front of the library.” Hazel says.

“How do you get money?” Diego questions carefully. The others keep quiet.

“Stealing.”

The siblings look at him slowly. Hazel shrugs, as if it wasn’t a big deal.

“You what?” Five says, incredulous.

“What did you think? That we had enough money from Adah’s? You’re all more naive than I thought.”

He’s right. That’s not a big deal, at least, not right now. It feels wrong, but they need to move on.

Five keeps searching. The temperature is cooler than they thought.

“Maybe his name is discrete.” Diego suggests, rubbing his hands. “This Todd Parker has paid for being under cover, perhaps?”

“I don’t know.” Five frowns, looking at the screen. Then, he notices his own, cool breath coming out of his mouth. “Dude! Who the fuck turns on the air conditioner on February?”

“What are you talking about, kid?” an old woman asks him, frowning. They all look at the ceiling where the machines are. “They’re not on.”

They open their mouths when they see that the air conditioner is not on, like the woman said. They all see their own cold breaths coming out.

“It must be the weather...” Five says and, when he turns to look at his keyboard, the object has ice on it. They look at the other computers, which are totally fine. It’s like _something_ wants to kick them out of there.

“What is going on?” Allison stutters.

Five stands up.

“W-We have to go.”

“What about... Todd?”

“Let’s go.”

They get out of the library and the temperature outside it’s like the difference between winter and summer despite being February. They stand under the shadow of a tree.

“Why...?” Diego says, rubbing his hands. “What...? How...?”

Five doesn’t know what to say. He remembers, once, as the Handler told him _if things get real serious in timelines, I’ll have to use my heavy weights._

He shivers. These kinds of things are going to be the _heavy weights_ against them?

**~~~**

When the training people come back to the apartment building, they talk a little bit to an immigrant family from Slovenia but not too much in case they suspect. They also don’t want to put them in danger. They get in their hideout by forcing the lock and putting it back into its place. Klaus yawns and decides to look for something to eat. Ben follows him to the door frame of the small kitchen while his brother is choosing between salty crackers or sweet cookies.

“Is it true that sobriety makes you hungry?”

Klaus didn’t expect that question, but he chuckles.

“Well, it’s true, at least, in my case.” he answers, choosing the sweet cookies and devouring them. “If we get to save the world, we could go to that place down the street, they have pasta of all kinds. Oh! There’s also a veggie place that imitates meat perfectly, but they also have magnificent desserts.”

“I remember you barely eating half a glass of water as breakfast when you got high.” Ben comments. “And not having cash to buy something when you were hungry in afternoons.”

Klaus shrugs.

“Sad but true. See? My whole life is all about sad but true.” he says. “With some glimpses of happiness here and there.”

“Like Dave?”

Klaus nods and lowers his head.

“Yeah.” he mutters. “But not just him, you know? Remember when we broke the shelves of Regi’s office and we blamed Diego?” They laugh together. “We even put one of his knives in the mess for not being caught.”

“But dad _did_ catch us.” he says in a chuckle. Good ol’ times... sometimes.

“Klaus.” They look at Vanya, who’s close to the door frame. “Can I talk to you?”

He nods, leaves the cookies on the counter and follows his sister to the bedroom of the left. They sit close to the window and open it. A breeze of wind delicately gets inside, but it’s not too cold.

“What is worrying you, Van?” he says, taking off his shoes and sitting on the mattress.

“Well... This morning, I talked to Hazel-”

“Really?” he asks, smiling with his eyes. “About...?”

“Life.” she says. She can’t help scratching her fingers. “About us.” Klaus mutters a soft _oh._ “He made me think. I just wanted to tell you... to remember not to be lost on yourself.”

Klaus tilts his head.

“Huh?”

“I-I know, I know I don’t know much about your situation, but you don’t have to press yourself either.” she continues. “You... You’re not selfish.”

Between the fact that Klaus is shocked by that kind of conversation and the fact that Vanya doesn’t explain herself too well, the point is far from being understood.

“What do you mean, honey?” he says, frowning and smiling at the same time; incredulous.

“I mean that, _you_ worrying about your problems doesn’t mean you’re selfish.”

Now Klaus seems to get the point. And, when he does, his smile is sad this time.

“I can worry about myself after all of this.” he makes sure.

“What if there’s not _after_?” she asks not in the pessimistic side of not trusting herself, but in a more philosophical way. “I-I think you’re like postponing your own issues for the future.”

Klaus sighs and scratches his hands. Back in 1952, he had promised Ben he would worry about himself after everything, but what if there’s no _after_? Klaus strokes the anklet of his left foot. He remembers how he was shot in this same foot, which caused him to meet young Dave, who gave him a chance to say a proper goodbye, as well as falling for him all over again.

“Of course I’m postponing, Vanya.” he mutters, now looking at her but still stroking Dave’s souvenir. “On purpose.”

She’s attentive and reverent with the situation.

“Why?”

“I’m scared of failing... not being able to conjure him.” he stutters. “And worse, what if we lose one of ours and I can’t conjure them either? There’s just... when it comes to conjuring someone, there’s always this emotion of loss that blocks me. I went through hell when I conjured Ben, but when I did it I couldn’t even make him tangible. With Dave... that sense of loss feels bigger on me.”

“So... you’re afraid of trying... and failing.”

“Yeah...” he gulps and sighs. “I’m scared, sis’.”

In order to keep Klaus away from his loss (or possible losses in the future), Vanya thinks about something else.

“Tell me. About him.”

Klaus is not prepared for this shit. He cringes at the mere thought of remembering all of the memories his heart and soul are still bound to. Too many emotions.

However, if they’re trying to help Vanya, maybe this helps her too.

“Ehm... I don’t know. What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Not specific memories, though.”

“Good! There are some things that are too explicit for a normal conversation.” he jokes, chuckling, and Vanya laughs. He knows Ben is around, listening, but that’s something that has never changed and probably will never change. “We... We _met_ two times. The first, in a tent before a battle, the other in a bus. And despite how simple he could seem to everybody else, he was... out of this world to me.”

“How did he make you feel?” she asks. Klaus frowns and looks down. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” he stands up and shakes his head to clear his thoughts. He sighs and chuckles. “I’m hungry again. Let’s prepare something until the others arrive.”

What they don’t know is that Luther is listening too, at least, the last part of the conversation. She seems like a good person to talk to because she always listens attentively before giving her opinion. The more he knows about her... the bigger the guilt is. He has been reminding himself that trust is slow, but the guilt won’t leave him in peace.

**_[“Blank Page”, Christina Aguilera]_ **

_... I know there’s hurt, I know there’s pain_

_But people change, Lord knows I’ve been no saint_

_In my own way, regret choices I’ve made_

_How do I say I’m sorry? How do I say I’m sorry?_

**~~~**

Apparently, they need to figure out more about this Todd Parker guy before Meritech Prosthetics is destroyed. Five wants to talk with Vanya to ask her about her powers and how they could deal with them, so Hazel, Diego and Allison are alone this time. Besides, they need more discretion this time because they don’t want to go through a possible secret threat in the hands of the Commission, like it happened in the place they went to. They go to another library this time but more hidden than the previous one. They even argue a little bit because they don’t fit in the space of one computer. “Okay, at least, this searcher is more useful.” Hazel comments while looking at the screen with concentration. Moments later, he speaks again. “Okay. This contacts page doesn’t say anything about some Todd Parker. But they have his last number. The _last_ known number.”

“What if he doesn’t have that one anymore?” Allison asks.

“Maybe. Maybe not. But, at least, we have the book I got the night we arrived. We already have his number, so we won’t use the book this time. We’ll probably need it the next few days.”

When they return around 5 pm, Diego asks for a needed nap while the others play an old card game and Five and Vanya talk. Just in case, Five tells them the random name of a worker from the Commission. Allison and Hazel go to the street once more and she volunteers to call the last number of Todd Parker in the phone booth. She has to try three times until someone answers.

 _“Hello?”_ a deep voice answers. She already imagines the great beard and his squared face.

“Eh, sir, I’m Nathalie Olson.” she says with a more different voice, like a younger one. “I have to talk to the Handler and I don’t have her contact. Can you make us meet her?”

They know they’re not going to make him do that (they don’t even want that), but it’s for starting conversation. And for confirming it’s Todd.

_“Who is it?”_

It’s him.

“Nathalie Olson. I’ve just started working in _youknowwhere,_ but the management in this enterprise is bullshit.” she laughs. “Do you know how to make us meet her?”

 _“No way I’m doing that, girl.”_ he hisses. They already knew that. _“What do you and your partner want?”_

“We need info from people close to her and we don’t have our phones because the idiot of my partner destroyed them. Do you know something about her or anything?”

_“I don’t know shit about her and I don’t want to. The less I work with her, the better.”_

“I know man, we just want to do our job.” she insists. “You know something or... otherwise we could give your real number to the Commission...”

 _“Don’t you fucking dare.”_ the deep voice hisses. _“I should have changed my phone... Fine! I still don’t know anything about her, girlie, but I do know three things. The first one is that she wants me to sell nickel objects in the black market as much as I can. The second is that someone betrayed her. And that she shared powers with her group.”_

“She shared powers? What do you mean with _share._ And that group was the Commission?”

 _“Goodbye, girlie.”_ he protests. _“I’m destroying this fucking hell of a number.”_

Before Allison pretends to insist, Todd Parker hangs up. Allison puts the phone back and looks at Hazel.

“What did he tell you? Something useful?”

She shrugs.

“Let’s go back.”

Once they’re back, Diego is still sleeping, so Five wakes him up and they all reunite in the living room. Luther puts the blackboard and the chalks in front of the TV while everybody is sitting down.

“Okay, first of all...” Hazel says. “I need an update. It’s 6 pm, after the second night. What were you doing?”

They try to remember and they answer in order: Luther was visiting Diego at the gym and that he could not have killed Reginald because he had an alibi; Allison had argued with Vanya because she had just talked with her ex-husband about her issues with Claire’s custody; Klaus doesn’t remember (but probably around the Academy) and Five was talking to Dolores about how he could stop the apocalypse and all of the possibilities. Then, Vanya remembers that her copy must be already receiving _Leonard Peabody_ as a fake student to teach him how to play the violin. She feels a soft pang in her stomach and her breath stutters. And they need to keep him alive...?

“What were _you_ doing, Haz?” Klaus asks and the other man cringes.

“Uhm, you all know that same day Five returned he went to the place where I met my girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Well... Me and my partner were torturing the guy that was with Five at the café.”

Some of the siblings sigh and try to ignore it. Sometimes, they forget he worked with them. He probably is going to like to return those times because of the days that will come.

“Well...” Allison breaks the ice. “We contacted Todd Parker. He told us that the Handler wants that guy to sell nickel objects to the black market and that she shared her abilities with her group, but he didn’t tell us if it was the Commission.”

“What did he tell you exactly?” Five questions.

“Something like... She was betrayed and she shared powers with her group.”

They reflect on it.

“It must be the Commission.” Five insists and Luther sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Why? Tell me why? Because all of the time we’re blaming the Commission for all of our problems. Maybe-”

Before Five gets his rage on, Hazel hits the board.

“Dude,” he says seriously, so much that it surprises Luther. “when it comes to history problems that have caused millions of deaths, catastrophes or disasters, it’s them. When we’re talking about the worst side of humanity inventing weapons, it’s them. And especially, when we’re talking about messed up timelines, it’s them! This is not a cartoon, Luther, the Commission is behind even secret organizations like the workers at the Pentagon or even Area 51.” He makes an indignant gesture with his hand. “Who do you think helped Albert Einstein to invent the formula of the atomic bomb? _E_ equals _mc_ squared?”

Luther stays silent. Allison would have jumped into his defense, but she knows Five and Hazel are right.

“So...” Klaus interrupts the silence once more.

“So,” Hazel echoes. “the Commission _probably_ used the Handler’s powers in order to accomplish missions but only a few people must have known about this.”

“Perhaps, the person who betrayed her knew about it.”

Aka, Reginald. Probably, but they don’t say that out loud.

“The thing is that the traitor used her powers and, then, she was betrayed.” Diego mutters, staring at the wall. “If it’s... dad, it makes sense that his departure from the Commission felt like a treason to the Handler.”

“Maybe.” Five says, staring at the board. There are just a few more things written on it, like the number of days before the end of the world, the possible relationship between Reginald and the Handler or some notes from the training. “Maybe not. It’s almost 7 pm. We have to keep trying to call all of the old workers from the association. We need disposable phones for the calls not being followed.”

They look at Hazel, who sighs.

“You all know I have to steal money to buy that, right?”

They know.

“The end justifies the means.” Ben comments.

**~~~**

While the others are either trying to find disposable phones in the section of lost objects from the markets or asking the immigrants for some money (which is not likely), Luther and Klaus stay alone. Klaus has finished painting his toenails with an expired nail polish from a drawer of the night stand and Luther can’t help staring at the board. Then, Klaus goes to the kitchen and returns with two glasses of water, giving one to his brother.

“How are you, bro?”

The big guy shrugs and drinks a little bit.

“I don’t know. I’m fine, I guess. Trying to support each other this time, for real.”

Klaus chuckles.

“Actually...” the other man says, getting close on the sofa. “Vanya and I talked. It was... interesting. Pretty philosophical.”

Luther opens his mouth and stays like that for some seconds, before speaking.

“I actually heard you both a little bit.”

Klaus lifts an eyebrow.

“Wow! Never took you for a nosy person.”

He shrugs again.

“Some things never change. But some others do.” he comments. “I just heard Vanya supporting you about Dave and all.” Klaus tries not to space out, thinking about him. “You’re afraid to try to conjure him?”

Klaus bites his tongue and the other man notices. He doesn’t want to talk about this all over again for the second time in the day.

“I am.” he says, then drinking half of the glass. “I _am_ , Luther. If I try and fail... then, I would have to deal with the true and deep feeling of loss and I’m not sure I’ll be able to cope with it. Dave meant a lot to me.”

Luther doesn’t want to press him either, so he diverts the conversation to another point.

“Maybe, when you try to conjure people after this, you have to do the same thing Vanya did when we were training this morning.”

“And what was that?”

“Not forgetting he died. Not forgetting the bad times you had with him but also focusing on the good, you know?” he pauses a little bit. “I don’t know, but I guess it’s like, in the time of truth, being on that thin line between love and hate or pain and joy or, in your case, between loss and good times.”

Klaus, who never avoids humor in deep conversations, mocks.

“Oh, brother, did you watch _X-Men: First Class_? You must have!”

Luther shakes his head.

“What’s that movie?”

Klaus finishes his water and gets closer again.

“The _X-Men_ are just like us. Dysfunctional mutants trying to cope with their powers and fit into society. This movie is inspired in a series of comics and when Xavier is talking to his friend-not-so-friend Magneto he tells him to focus on the thin line between rage and serenity to control his powers.”

Luther nods.

“If we manage to fix things up, let’s watch it together.”

**~~~**

It’s around 9 pm, but they’re not finished with their day yet. Right now they’ve decided that Klaus, Five, Ben and Hazel are going back to the Academy with Hazel on the talkie outside as the others try to put the clues together, especially with the multiverses book.

They decide to go to Reginald’s office once more, so Five takes their hands and they go inside. There’s barely light coming from outside the window, so they turn on the flashlights. Ben notices that Klaus is frowning.

“What is it?”

Klaus shakes his head.

“Nothing, it’s just... All of this reminds me of... everything.”

Ben knows what he’s talking about. His childhood, the competence among siblings, getting into drugs and alcohol, coming back only to be thrown to save the world, going back to 1968 and losing the love of his life, the Academy destroyed.

“You can leave if you want, I’ll try to convince Five-”

“No! No.” he says. He sighs deeply and opens his eyes. Luckily, he stops spacing out so much. “I’m fine now. I don’t want to stay too long, though.”

“Let’s do this, then.”

Just in case, they use plastic disposable gloves for not being identified. Despite the closeness, they didn’t know much about Pogo, who could easily find out they’re breaking home or trying to steal something.

“Here.” Ben says, moving a shelf with his hands and uncovering some rolled papers, some of them small, some of them humongous. After looking at some of the maps that make no sense, Five takes one of medium size and opens it while Klaus is lighting the paper up with his own flashlight. They all look at it and frown.

It looks like the map of the world but very different. The most distinguishable things are that in this map the USA and Canada are united in a _country_ named _Northern America_ and Russia is divided in other smaller countries. There are some other similar details, like Spain and Portugal united in a country named _Iberia_ and Sweden, Norway and Finland in one called _Scandinavia._ Five turns around the map and there’s their current world with the countries they know. There are a lot of red dots on this side of the map and other lines that look like they do not have a connection at all.

“Here.” Ben holds the map as Five takes a photo with a small disposable camera Hazel found in lost objects (after not finding any phone).

“How many dots are there?”

Five counts them quickly and freezes because of the answer.

“Forty three.”

There’s silence, just filled with two breaths and a ghost-sigh.

“Isn’t that the number of gifted children that were born in...?” Klaus starts but stops. They didn’t know how many gifted children were born in 1989 just like them until Hazel told them in the mission from 1986. 1986 was a long mission.

“Yeah.” Five says, barely above a whisper. Damn. This whole thing about figuring out more about their father is leaving him exhausted and shocked, feelings he started to know when he was alone after the end of the world. He thought it was over. “It is.”

Ben wants to scream, but he can’t, not when the copies could be everywhere around the house.

“Son of a bitch!” he hisses. “I mean, does this mean he knew where he could find all of _us._ But he couldn’t get us all?”

“Yeah.” Five says and Klaus has to take the map with the other hand before Five wrinkles it from his fury. “Apparently.”

“But...” Ben strokes his chin. “Does that mean that if dad was the one who betrayed the Handler, that... the treason was leaving the Commission and looking for us? To stop her plans?”

“I think that the thing about leaving and searching for us could be possible, but the treason part... maybe it’s something else.”

“Like what?”

“Think about it.” he says attentively and the others pay attention. “Dad had a book about parallel universes and this first side of the map is very different from our world. What if they had an organization together and he left _that_ universe to be in this one?”

They do think about it. Then, Klaus clears his throat.

“Something big must have happened in that world, then. Otherwise, Regi wouldn’t have left.”

There’s silence again. It’s around 11 pm. They can’t rack their own brains right there anymore; after putting everything back on its place, Five takes his brothers’ hands and they teleport back to the hideout with Hazel. They tell their conclusion to the rest and Hazel writes all of it on the board inside of a square: _parallel universe: Regi & Handler => Regi left. _

“So...?” Allison mutters. “... If he’s her traitor, he left that world because she did something wrong?”

“I don’t understand,” Vanya says. “If _she_ did something wrong, why did _he_ leave?”

“I don’t know...” Five says, sitting down on the sofa. “Maybe to avoid more conflicts...” he mutters, rubbing his temples. _Or maybe he’s the one who did something wrong._ “Well... You... You have to rest.” He takes out his jacket. It’s been a long day. They’re exhausted. “Goodnight.” Everyone sighs and, suddenly, Luther grabs his arm, so Five wriggles out. “What?”

“You have to keep calm.”

“Calm?” he asks, frowning. “About what?”

“About everything. You said before _we_ have to rest, without including yourself.”

“Yeah, whatever.” he hisses. “ _Let_ ’s rest, okay?”

Luther knows that this isn’t enough to stop his brother from going mad about the apocalypse. He’s already going nuts.

**~~~**

**[12:32 pm]**

_“They’re outside the library, chief.”_

_“Good. Come back with me. I need to figure out which timelines Five Hargreeves messed up when he left 1955.”_

**_[“The Show Must Go On”, Queen]_ **

_Empty spaces, what are we living for?_

_Abandoned places, I guess we know the score, on and on_

_Does anybody know what we are looking for?_

_Another hero, another mindless crime_

_Behind the curtain, in the pantomime_

_Hold the line_

_Does anybody want to take it anymore?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are timelines that are "alive" (like the one where they are now), but what about the timelines that are "destroyed"?  
> [ "old guy with blackish clothes": Kurt Russell ]  
> [ "Todd Parker": Clancy Brown ]


	5. 2x04: "Tears in Heaven"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meritech Prosthetics is under surveillance, both by the original Hargreeves... and the Commission too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fourth episode | Song: "Tears In Heaven", Eric Clapton

_Would you know my name_

_If I saw you in heaven?_

_Would it be the same_

_If I saw you in heaven?_

_I must be strong and carry on..._

**~~~**

**_**[“Let It Be”, The Beatles]** _ **

_And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree_

_There will be an **answer** , let it be_

_For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see_

_There will be an answer, let it be_

_Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be_

_There will be an answer, let it be_

_Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be_

_Whisper words of wisdom, let it be_

_Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be_

_Whisper words of wisdom, let it be_

They sleep a few more minutes than they should in their third night, but they were totally tired. That’s okay because they’re still sleeping around 9 am, still in REM phase, except Klaus, whose dreams are different from others, so he doesn’t have _phases_ of sleep. Klaus, who can’t help spinning on the bed, but he shares bed with Diego, who sleeps like a rock, and Five, who was more tired than usual this night.

Klaus, still moving on the bed, dreams of something different. His dreams are very different from others due to his abilities; now, he dreams of the greenest prairie he has ever seen in the world (it looks like it doesn’t have an end) and it’s accompanied by a blue sky and a singing wind that strokes his mind. Later, one second or an entire eternity, two young arms hug him from behind and make him turn around and, of course, it’s none other that young Dave, looking at him because he’s in his young form too, both of them. They don’t speak much. He doesn’t know what to say.

 _“I_ _miss you.”_ Klaus mutters suddenly. Dave chuckles.

_“I know. I miss you too.”_

They lean into the touch, stroking each other softly, and bend to kiss, barely touching lips, just some seconds, until they split.

 _“Dave... if I had the chance to change_ everything _about us, would you want me to do it?”_

Dave shakes his head and smiles.

_“Not at all.”_

Klaus bows his head.

_“But, you’re dead...”_

_“I know. My answer is still the same.”_

Just as Dave strokes his cheek, he listens to a familiar female voice calling him with a deep tone. _“Klaus, come.”_

Klaus opens his eyes. His teary eyes. Weird. He feels confused. He cleans them off his face and realizes Diego is on their door frame, looking at him distractedly.

“Klaus, come on, man.” his brother says. Klaus sits on the bed. “Breakfast. It’s 11 pm, we should get going with this. I can’t believe I woke up before you.”

Klaus sighs and, after spacing out thinking about that _realistic_ dream, comes back to his real self and chuckles.

“Yeah, I won this time, night owl!”

Before he comes back with the others, he checks out his anklet is still on, stands up and goes to the living room. Like yesterday, salty crackers with apple juice. They’re going to need to eat something strong after they solve all of this. Maybe an entire day outside the house eating breakfast, brunch, snacks, dinner, all of that in good restaurants or bars.

“It’s kind of late.” Hazel says while watching Five eat quickly. He’s not exactly well rested, but he’s not tired either. “What do we do today?”

Five swallows his food. Apart from not being totally rested, he’s hungry as hell too. He speaks while eating.

“Today it’s when all of my siblings started to suspect from Grace about dad’s death and we were arguing if we should trust her or not.” he answers. “While I was wandering around Meritech with Dolores, in a van, for figuring out the identification of the eye.”

“How were you doing that?” Diego asks him, eating bread with nothing. Oh, that _is_ bad for health. Breakfast is the most important food of all day. Maybe doing some exercise and a good diet together is a good idea. He takes a mental note of perhaps taking Vanya to a gym with him after they solve all of this.

In the meantime, Klaus’ mind spaces out while staring at the wall. If his maths are correct, tonight is the night when he’s kidnapped. Then, he spends all of the next morning and evening trying to get out, then being rescued by Patch, then taking the briefcase, and then...

He gulps.

He can’t help sweating and sighing with a stutter. He remembers the glimpse of some thoughts when they arrived at the hideout. It has been eating his mind away, trying to get it out of his head, but it’s always there and it remains inside.

_What if...? No._

However...

_“Would you want me to change everything if I could?”_

_“Not at all.”_

Klaus had his goodbye from Dave in 1952. Nevertheless, in this parallel universe, his own copy hasn’t traveled back to 1968 _yet_. Maybe he could...

“Klaus?” Diego asks. “Are you there?”

He stares back at Diego, but the others are looking as well. Allison looks worried, Five with a mix between disappointment and understanding and Diego is attentive. Klaus shakes his head.

“What?”

“Do you remember what you were going to do today?”

He sighs.

“Well, before being kidnapped by _Bonny and Clyde_ , I was searching for Regi’s diary everywhere in order to give it back to Pogo, but I didn’t find it.”

Hazel wants to say something to him because of that, but Five interrupts.

“Something else?”

“I don’t remember, just accompanying Luther to search for Five.”

“How in the goddamn world were you kidnapped?”

“He was taking a bath with headphones.” Hazel answers. “He definitely didn’t see that coming.”

Five wants to call Klaus idiot, but he doesn’t.

“What if today we keep searching for old coworkers but together?” Vanya suggests. It’s not a bad idea, actually.

“Well, by not splitting the group you wouldn’t scare the shit out of me if you teleport right in front of my face.” Klaus chuckles while stroking his curls. Stopping the end of the world is really bad for hair.

Allison’s mind wanders to another detail they didn’t notice.

“Vanya,” she says and they all look at Allison. Five eats another cracker but with butter. “when Luther, Diego and Five returned together by night, did you get scared?”

She tilts her head.

“I didn’t, actually. Why?”

“A lamp exploded.”

She shrugs and everyone looks at Ben, who wrinkles his nose.

“It wasn’t me, I swear. I wasn’t tangible when we returned from the industrial units.”

They stay in silence.

Then, Luther remembers one sentence he read in the brown book they got from that same night. A sentence that didn’t make sense but that could make sense now with the thing of the lamp. He goes behind the kitchen counter and returns with it, reading it and frowning.

“... this apartment is old as fuck.” Hazel makes sure. “It must be that.”

“But people are looking for us.”

Luther gasps in silence at what he reads in their dad’s notes. Before they had read in his office about _don’t trust them again_ , there were notes about them, about their powers.

“What is it?” Allison asks him.

“Here...” Luther sighs. “Well, apart from here claiming that Vanya has telekinesis, right after that there’s a little note that says _keeping Klaus’ under surveillance too_.”

They look at him. Klaus looks at all of them back, without realizing. He hates being slower than everybody else in certain situations.

“Klaus, did you get scared when Five, Luther and I arrived from the Academy in the night?”

“I already told you so! God damn...” He rubs his face while everybody stares at him. It takes some seconds before the realization dawns on him and, then, he opens his eyes. Not wanting to be in that place, frowning, staying still, and wanting to go back to bed. “Wait.”

“Yes!” Five says... happy? That feeling is unnerving.

Klaus stands up, forgetting about his apple juice. He looks at all of them, astonished. All of them seem attentive except Vanya, who’s understanding, and Five, who’s energetic. This can’t be happening to _him_.

“No.” he says, laughing with nervousness and he suddenly realizes he’s been walking around the sofa. He growls and bites his lower lip. “No, no, no, no, no...” He could have another power. He could have telekinesis, something that can end worlds. Something extremely powerful because it deserves to be hidden, like Regi did with him... and with Vanya too. “No!”

“Yes.” Five insists. “Now we have other power to use against the Commission-”

“Fuck you!” he spits. Five clenches his jaw. “That was rough, sorry, but I don’t want other powers I don’t know how to keep at bay. If you guys remember, I used to get high.”

Five decides to stop arguing.

“Five.” Luther tells his brother before this gets out of control. Five sighs through his nose and stares back. “Even if we know that right now he has telekinesis, how are we going to explore that in a matter of a few days from his very beginning?”

Five sighs again.

“I know... I’m sorry. If we make this right, after everything, we can explore your telekinesis.”

Klaus bows his head. This could be all a misunderstanding, but he could have that power for real. It would make sense.

“I’m sorry for insulting you.”

At least, their argument has finished okay. At the end, they realize they’re going to have to be together when Meritech is about to be destroyed, in order to avoid it. Which happens tomorrow, at the end of the afternoon; at 7 pm as Five remembers. Besides that, today they will remain all morning in the hideout, around the building trying to search for something useful while Hazel guards the neighborhood. They don’t want strange visitors or the shooters right now.

While everyone is trying to clean (more like making the hideout more comfortable and Five takes a shower in the most horrible shower in the world), Luther finds some white papers and sticks them on the board. Allison helps him. They remain in silence, but they feel comfortable, like it always has been between them. It feels good in the middle of chaos.

“We...” she mutters. “We haven’t had much time to talk about _us_.”

Luther sighs and smiles softly. Allison looks good in that wine red shirt. He just feels awkward without his coats.

“Well, we obviously don’t have much time.” he comments. “How are you?”

She smiles briefly.

“Fine, as far as I can be. Missing my daughter every minute...”

She breathes deeply and Luther rounds her shoulders with his big arm. Allison wipes a tear off her face and looks back at him. Her smile is beautifully sad. The only thing he can do right now is reassuring, staying right by her side, and putting aside the thought of _nobody really remains strong for me when I need someone._

“If we make this right, we can see her again. The Claire from this universe is alive. It’s not exactly your daughter, but still...”

Does that imply that the copies are going to suffer _which_ consequences? How are they going to end? What could happen to the copies?

Allison nods.

“Yeah. I guess.” she mutters, then, they look at each other. Sometimes, they forget the path they’ve been through together. Their moments in the attic, hiding from Reginald, their fights against evil. Allison rests her head against his shoulder. “Thank you.”

And, after everything he’s been learning, Luther knows that, despite guilt, he’s willing to do anything to keep his family safe.

“Anything for you.” he mutters. They get away from each other when the others return with a disposable phone and Five from the shower. “What are we going to do here?”

Five puts on an old lilac shirt they found on a crater.

“Physics.”

“Oh, no...” Diego puffs.

“Oh, yes.” Five cheers up. “We got some notebooks when we landed, take them.” Once they take them, they return with pencils too and sit around the table or on the floor. “Quantum physics.” Five says, taking the multiverse-parallel universes black book. “Do you know the difference between multiverses and universes?”

“You explained it to me,” Diego says. “in one multiverse there are the same events but changed, like a lot of _what ifs_ inside a balloon. Another multiverse has different events with its own parallel universes.”

“Correct.” Five states. “Different events from different _what ifs_.”

“I don’t understand.” Allison mutters, frowning and writing. “So, they’re like worlds inside worlds?”

“Well, not exactly, imagine it as if...” Five strokes his chin and stands up next to the board. “... as if, for example, in our multiverse there’s Adolf Hitler, the dictator. He doesn’t exist in other multiverses because there are different things that happen. However, inside our own multiverse he exists and in our different parallel universes Hitler doesn’t become a dictator because he becomes an artist or he does become that, but he’s killed by the communists instead of killing himself...”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Klaus interrupts, raising his hand. “wait. I thought the thing about that Hitler killed himself was a lie. That the communists killed him...”

“Not, actually.” Five makes sure. “His gun was on the Commission headquarters when I was in 1955, his gun had his fingerprints.”

“But...” Vanya says. “Didn’t you just say that we’re in a parallel universe and not in ours?” she points out. “Think about it.”

That’s definitely something he hadn’t thought about. They’re not in their universe. That’s something Klaus has thought about. He doesn’t understand a shit. If this is a parallel universe because they travelled back, how did his Dave from their world know about _John_? Temporal mistakes the Commission has left out or...?

“So, you’re suggesting this Hitler has died in any other way?” Five asks Vanya and, before she can answer, he snaps. “Do you guys remember our mission from 1974?”

“Yeah, we sent a poor guy to 1945 with our briefcase to give Russian soldiers a map about...” Luther keeps quiet, trying to decipher the mystery. “Wait... Could we have sent that man with a map of the bunker for the Russians to find Hitler faster so that they’re the ones who killed him in this world?”

“Yeah. We did.” Five hisses. “Shit... and we thought that he was just going to give the map to the black market.”

“Five.” Diego interrupts. He tries to be soft about this. “I know you trust him and we should keep doing it ‘cause we have no other option, but Hazel doesn’t tell us what he really knows.”

Five grinds his teeth and looks back at the board.

“You’re right. When he returns, we’ll let him know.”

 _If he returns_ , Klaus thinks.

They keep talking about parallel multiverses and parallel universes until they get it enough to understand the concept. Then, Diego stands up and touches the blackboard with the papers with a lot of drawings.

“Can people from one multiverse travel to another?”

“Maybe they could, with an interdimensional vortex.” his brother answers, but Diego frowns. “My powers.”

“You already have a hard time when you go to parallel universes alone.” Ben reminds. “What could happen to you trying to go to a different multiverse? And how many multiverses are there?”

Five shrugs and sits down.

“I don’t know, but for the moment we don’t need to do that. Right now... we have to protect Meritech.”

“And how do we do that?” Allison asks. “I mean, I know it looks easy because there were only two people who destroyed it, but... what if the Commission itself sends more back-up when they see we want to avoid its destruction?”

“They’re definitely going to do that.” Five states. Then, he notices how much Vanya looks uneasy. She’s already scratching her nape. “What is it, Vanya?”

“I... Even if... Even if I get to be under control tomorrow in the first event, what if the other Five sees us? His copy saw how the building was destroyed. He was around.”

“True.” Diego agrees. “Don’t tell me we’re gonna have to be more disguised.”

“Tell me we’re gonna have another change of wardrobe!” Klaus claps his hands. “Please!”

“We’re gonna have to.” Ben shrugs. “Sorry, Diego. But, the hair suits you.”

“Yeah, well, I only left it because I remembered Patch liked it like this.”

They keep silent, like anytime any of them mentions one of their losses. Klaus unconsciously strokes his anklet. He did it their first night back to 2019 when he was afraid of sleeping because he didn’t want the spirits to hunt his dreams. He did fall asleep, but he didn’t dream of anything, like all of the rest of the nights... except the one of tonight, the one with young-looking Dave. Does that mean something? And that female voice he heard?

It’s around 2 pm when they finish talking about quantum physics.

“Well...” Luther puffs while keeping the papers inside a crater. “This is exhausting. We should eat something.”

They try to make something with the food they have. He sees how Five is attempting something with the talkie and frowning.

“What?”

Five tries to touch the buttons, but nothing comes.

“Hazel should have returned already...”

Luther doesn’t say anything, but he says it all. He doesn’t trust him. When Hazel does return is when they have already food on the table.

“Where have you been?” Diego asks.

“Ahh... Well, I went around Meritech if something came out but nothing interesting.” he sits at the table. “Ooh... Tuna.” He starts to eat and, then, he feels under surveillance. He looks up. “What?”

“Are you manipulating us for being captured by the Commission on purpose?” Klaus speaks and everyone looks at him. Hazel too, lifting an eyebrow and coughing. “What? I thought he had to trust each other?”

“Not when we suspect someone!” Five claims and, then, he looks back at Hazel, who doesn’t know what’s going on. “We have to talk, Haz.”

Hazel doesn’t know what to say at the beginning.

“Wait, before you all say anything against me, _you_ Five was the one who told me to guard territory.”

“But you were the one who told us about all the possible missions.” Five points at him with determination. Hazel also was supposed to guard the neighborhood and not getting away. “Like the 1974 one.”

Hazel can’t believe what’s going on.

“You also participated in those decisions!” he protests. “I volunteered for the most important part of them, yes, but with the guy from 1974 I didn’t know anything.”

“And why did you give him _that_ map?” Five accuses. “Didn’t you suspect anything when you were right on the same day when Hitler died?”

“I did suspect! But the boy must have delivered the map to the Russians alone!” he screams. “We all came to the conclusion that by delivering a random map from the Berlin store to him would favour us to stop the apocalypse. Nothing else. I don’t know anything else. Besides, we didn’t even get to see the map, the boy did. He must have known alone what to do with it. It’s not technically our fault that Hitler was killed and didn’t kill himself.”

Exactly. They just knew that by delivering a subterranean map of Berlin to the boy (and Hazel because he accompanied him with the briefcase), history would change because one _minor_ worker from the Commission would die, someone named Lucas or so. They didn’t know anything more.

“Okay...” Diego puffs. He’s tired of distrust. “We trust you.”

“It doesn’t look like so.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry, but we’re getting a bit paranoid.”

“A bit?”

Klaus is the only one to manage a laugh and Ben only chuckles.

They decide that they’re going to spend the day doing what they’ve been doing last couple of days: watching the Academy and looking for clues. This time, Allison, Five, Vanya and Hazel are going to guard the Academy and the others are going to a computer room but not one random from a library, but one they’ve managed to find relatively cheap. Especially with what Hazel has been taking away.

This time, Diego sits on the chair as the others watch.

“What are we looking for?” Diego asks with the keyboard under his hands. “I’m tired of going from computer to computer, from clue to clue. Repetitive.”

“Come on.” Luther tells him while tapping his shoulder softly. Diego wrinkles his nose and opens the search engine. “Okay. Let’s try with searching _Reginald Hargreeves_?”

“That’s a little straightforward, isn’t it?” Klaus says.

“Well, we’ll try to delete it later, okay? Otherwise, we won’t advance with the investigation.” the other man states. Then, he searches for the name of their father on the search engine and it appears everything they basically know about him. “Well, this isn’t much. How he contributed to science until he saw that forty three children were born out of the blue with powers and he went nuts. Nothing new.” They keep searching and Ben points at a square. “What?”

“Read that.” Ben says and they all do it. “That’s a blurred picture... And the description says _sir Reginald Hargreeves with another woman_. We can’t see the picture?”

“No. It’s blocked, I can click it, but it just shows me the same blurry picture but bigger.” Diego answers.

“Try clicking it and reloading the page.” Klaus suggests. Diego does that and the picture is clearly seen now. “See?” They see Reginald walking with a woman. The Handler. They look a lot younger, around thirty years old, but the picture doesn’t tell any date or where it was taken from. “What?”

“Well, this isn’t a surprise.” Luther comments. “That also says that the Hargreeves siblings came out of the blue, working separately.”

They reflect on it.

The Hargreeves siblings working separately, so it’s not them.

They stay in silence. What the hell?

“So. They’re siblings.” Diego says and he takes his talkie, clicking the number five, Five’s talkie. Fuck. This shouldn’t have affected them this much because they knew there was a big chance that they were family. But this...? “Hey, Five, you there?”

_“I’m here. What is it?”_

“Reginald and the Handler were siblings.”

Five keeps quiet. He can hear Allison whispering _what did he just say?_

“They’re siblings. She’s a Hargreeves.” he gulps and holds himself onto the chair for not passing out. “She’s our aunt-”

 _“Don’t say that!”_ Five hisses. He keeps quiet again. Diego gives him time because he really needs it. _“Okay, try... try keep searching... We’re trying to return to the dark room.”_

And they hear the _beep_. Diego keeps his talkie inside his pocket. His hands are trembling all of a sudden. However, he stays strong for his siblings. He needs to keep fighting, just like Patch would have done for her team. They keep looking for more info about the Hargreeves, but they only find about themselves, not her. They’re about to give up because they can’t pay more minutes.

“Erin.” Ben suddenly says, reading a footnote in another page about them. They look at him without understanding. “Erin Hargreeves. Her.”

They look where he’s pointing at. Then, the computer turns off.

“Shit.” Diego says, punching the table. Good thing he didn’t do it to the screen. “Good job, Ben.” Ben smiles and Klaus pats his shoulder with pride. “Let’s go back to the hideout.”

****~~~** **

Around 5 pm, when they return, Allison, Five, Vanya and Hazel are already there. They didn’t find anything new, just papers that don’t make any sense and about powers. Vanya sits on the sofa and looks at the map with the forty three dots. Is she the only one that has realized that this map could tell them where they were born? She supposes that they rather not think about it. They’re coping with so much already.

“What now?” Klaus asks, eating an ice pop that only tastes like water. Vanya doesn’t like them, so she lets her brother enjoy his own. “Erin Hargreeves, our dear auntie.” He chuckles. “What could be worse than having a horrible father? A horrible aunt!”

“Yeah, the webpage told us that they arrived out of the blue and separated. Which explains they’re family and the treason but not why she followed him.”

“Maybe for taking revenge on the treason?” suggests Allison, eating the other half the ice pop Klaus shares. “That woman is nuts. I can expect anything from her.”

“The Handler is out of her mind, but she’s not just _nuts_.” Five corrects. Diego frowns, sitting on a crate.

“Wait, don’t tell me you’re defending _her_. You’re defending our horrible aunt.”

Five frowns too but because of the mere idea of having her as aunt or anything related to them.

“I’m not _defending_ her.” he justifies. “But I do think that she’s intelligent enough to make all of this shit, to keep searching for us after trying to make us think she’s dead, somehow.”

“Are you listening to yourself?” Diego says, incredulous and indignant. “Because comparing dad to the Handler is nothing, do you also think he’s a saint now?”

“Of course he wasn’t.” he yells. “She’s not either, I’m just saying she’s intelligent!”

“Wow! She must have known we’re her nephews, so technically you’re the favorite from auntie, just like Luther was from dad.”

Luther contains himself from yelling at Diego. Instead, he stands between his two brothers despite Five can teleport anytime. Diego bows his head after Klaus whispers _and I’m the big mouth here?_ Klaus is the big mouth par excellence, but that doesn’t mean any of his siblings are not.

“I’m sorry...” Diego says, looking at the ceiling before looking back at his two brothers. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Luther says and Five nods too, accepting the apology.

“So, Erin Hargreeves, huh?” Allison says after some minutes. “What a family. What if dad betrayed her so bad for her to come after him?”

That’s the question.

That night, after talking more about multiverses and universes, they don’t take long in sleeping, except Klaus. He’s still awake, moving around. He yawns once and again, but he can’t sleep. He decides to sit in the middle of the darkness on the mattress, go to the kitchen, drink water and sit on a chair of the table.

He takes off his shoes and his socks, to stare at the anklet of his left foot. The half of the heart, split in half but not in the peak like the _emoji_ of the broken heart but split edgewise, remains strong and alone, needing the other half to feel complete. This lonely half a heart still has the rest of the anklet to move on with its life, but it still misses something.

Just when Klaus touches the anklet, he falls asleep.

****~~~** **

He doesn’t dream of something new. He doesn’t dream of anything until he hears distant voices. Then, memories of childhood return with strength. The pain, the ghosts screaming at him, killing him or tearing his skin off and Klaus covering his ears and closing his eyes. After a while, he disappears into something new where he sees flashes of light passing next to him. He can see just a few ones; like he and Ben blaming Diego with the knife, him experimenting his first overdose which he doesn’t remember the age he was and some memories from Vietnam. His memories, _their_ memories together; those precious moments he’s always going to keep to himself.

That’s right.

Klaus wakes up with a gasp. He takes some minutes recovering his breath. He cleans off his sweat and his eyes stop blinking. When his mind stops spinning, he realizes. The memories are always going to be his, _theirs_ , and nobody is going to take that away from him about what happened in their universe.

However, in this one...

Klaus goes silently to his bedroom and dresses up with his long white jacket, white pants, white ankle boots, a red belt and a black shirt. It’s cold outside, so he takes Luther’s coat. He takes a smaller bag with clothes, food and a small amount of money, around fifty dollars. He takes his sunglasses and puts them on. He makes sure the anklet is still on its place, where it should be. He takes his talkie and leaves it on the table before leaving the hideout.

 _“Despite everything, you have to worry about yourself, that doesn’t make you selfish.”_ Vanya had told him.

He’s listening to his sister. Dave died in his universe, but maybe he can avoid that in this one.

**_**[“Keep Me In Your Heart”, Warren Zevon]** _ **

_Shadows are falling and I’m running out of breath_

_Keep me in your heart for a while_

_If I leave you it doesn’t mean I love you any less_

_Keep me in_ **_**your heart**_** _for a while_

****~~~** **

Normally, Diego wouldn’t have woken up in the middle of the night, around 4 pm, but he drank more orange juice than usual in the dinner, so he wakes up and Klaus is not there. Five is but not Klaus.

Diego doesn’t worry.

He goes to the bathroom, pees, washes his hands and goes to the kitchen and, then, the laundry room. Klaus is not there. He comes back to the bedroom and looks outside the window. He’s not around either. Then, he returns to the living room and sees the talkie.

Now, Diego does worry.

He comes back to the bedroom and shakes Five’s arm. Five stirs under the sheets and wakes up yawning.

“Yeah...?”

“Klaus is gone.” he mutters.

“What!?”

****~~~** **

They all wake up around a quarter past four, still sleepy. Hazel can’t even contribute something useful to the conversation.

“Okay, why in the goddamn world is Klaus gone?” Five asks.

“Obviously.” Ben snaps. “He thinks he can save Dave by taking the briefcase he originally took.”

Five’s mind explodes and Luther nods, understanding.

“Sorry, Ben, but if you’ve figured it out so soon, why didn’t you tell us before?”

“I didn’t know he was going to be so impulsive. I told him to solve all of his problems after we solved this.” he justifies. “But I’m talking to you right now, so he mustn’t be too far yet. I can disappear at any moment.”

“Maybe...” Vanya mutters and everyone looks at her. “Maybe it’s my fault, I-I told him not to think of himself as selfi-”

“No.” Allison jumps into her defense and strokes her arm. “No. You didn’t know he was going to do something like this. Don’t blame yourself.”

Vanya tries to ignore her guilt. Given that she has trained twice or thrice, it’s a little bit easier.

“We have to find him.” Luther states. “What has happened yesterday apart from arguing if we should deactivate Grace or not?”

“Klaus was kidnapped.” Diego answers. “That’s why he escaped today. Because around this evening-night he’s going to escape from the motel with the briefcase... if the real Klaus doesn’t take it first. What do you think, Be-... Ben?”

Ben is gone.

“Shit.” Five mutters, yawning. “Okay. We have to split again.” he says with bother.

“Why do you say it like that? I didn’t think you liked team-ups.”

“I don’t.” Five says, moving his head. He needs more sleep, he’s being honest. “But I need you all.” They’re surprised by that little confession. “We have to search for him individually. But research is needed too. We can’t stop just because of one person.”

“I can search for him.” Diego says. “I remember where the motel is.”

“Me too.” Hazel gets to say through a yawn.

“But maybe Klaus doesn’t.” Allison suggests. “Maybe he’s trying to look in all of the motels... Think about it, it was dark both when he was forced to enter and when he escaped.”

“Right.” Luther says. Crap, Klaus doesn’t know where that place is. “Someone has to stay here, just in case. Besides, technically today is the Meritech event. What if we train with Vanya?”

Five nods.

“Okay. Me and Luther are going to stay here with Vanya. The others are going to split to look for Klaus.”

****~~~** **

At the end, Luther, Five and Vanya stay in the hideout. Diego goes north and Allison goes south with Hazel.

In the meantime, both brothers let Vanya sleep until it’s 8 am, so do they. However, when they wake up, they ask the others by talkie, but they haven’t even found a trace of Klaus, so they’re coming home again to have a little morning nap. When they return, they all have breakfast in silence and, after that, the ones who tried to look for Klaus sleep a little bit more while Luther, Five and Vanya are talking.

“Maybe something else can be useful for you to control yourself.” Five says. Luther is taking a shower.

“And what is that?”

“I was thinking about it... but I think you should create a bubble around yourself.”

“A bubble?” she frowns softly. Sometimes, she wishes she could understand her brother quicker, but then again, he comes from the future. “I-I already have a bubble, remember when I snapped in 1952 in Adah’s prairie?”

“I think it’s not the same concept.” he insists. “You already have a comfort zone, but you have to break that and have a safe bubble.”

Vanya doesn’t get him. Five seems to be concentrated.

“What is the difference?”

Five puts his hands in his pocket and sighs.

“I don’t know how to explain this, I don’t have a comfort zone.”

Vanya supposes it’s because he lived alone most of his life. That makes the situation more understanding.

“Well, try to explain it, I’ll catch up.”

“Fine, imagine it as if... someone likes spaghetti but hates macaroni. Getting out of the comfort zone means that person tries to eat macaroni. The safe bubble is a place where you just concentrate on what you’re doing, in your case, using your powers correctly.”

“And what about that thing of remembering bad and good memories?”

“You let them pass by your mind. Both kinds of memories, but you just... it’s like greeting someone you know in the street, whether you hate him or love him.”

Now she understands. That’s as useful as what Luther told her. That bubble would help her keep those strong memories at bay; she just has to concentrate more on her actions rather than her memories.

“Okay. Now I get it.” she says. Five smirks. Just like the others; anything to help his sister. “I wanna go to the industrial unit now, but...”

“Just with me?” he finishes. She nods. “Okay.”

Five tells Luther to tell the others they’re leaving alone and they do but not before Luther warns them to take care around the zone and tell them about anything strange. Later, Allison wakes up around 11 am.

“Where are...?”

“They’re training alone.”

“Oh. Alone?” Luther nods. “Okay.” Allison eats bites of bread while sitting with Luther on the sofa. It doesn’t take too long before she breaks the ice. “I’m worried.” she suddenly confesses.

“What? About the first event?”

“About everything.” she hesitates. “About us.”

Luther takes her hand and she looks at him with uncertainty.

“I know _I_ am not the best at talking, especially for what I’ve done, but I think we’re gonna do okay. We’re the Hargreeves.”

“Last I checked, the Handler is also a Hargreeves.” she reminds him. That’s true. Luther wrinkles his nose. “Does that mean she’s gonna do _okay_ too?” He doesn’t say anything to that. “Besides, we’re not doing so okay so far. We don’t trust the man that’s helping us and one of our brothers is missing.”

“Klaus made his choice of leaving. Even so, I’m sure he’s gonna come back.”

“I don’t wanna make anyone nervous, but a change like the one Klaus wants to make wouldn’t mess up the timelines more?”

Luther hesitates.

“Not... Not necessarily. We’re not in our universe, we’re in a parallel one.”

“What about the copy of Klaus? He has to be sober for the final battle in the theater.”

Luther hesitates again.

“Not... Not necessarily. Not necessarily if we’re there to help, our Klaus could be the one to save us all again from the shooters in the theater.”

“Oh.”

“I know Klaus hasn’t been the best at thinking before acting, but maybe he has thought about this for real. Especially when it comes to saving Dave.”

Allison is the one who hesitates now. She sighs and squeezes his hand.

“We haven’t even tried to turn on the TV.” she realizes, looking at the black screen. “And... what about _your_ copy? I mean, sober Klaus saved you when you were getting drunk and all.”

“Maybe our Klaus wants to help that Luther too. Anything to keep this Dave safe.”

They enter silence again, but they don’t stop holding hands for a while.

****~~~** **

“What the hell are you doing?”

Klaus stops walking, clenches his jaw and turns around under the shadow around midday with a sarcastic smirk. The other man is wearing sunglasses and crossing his arms.

“You know what? I don’t know, Benny, I don’t know shit, not anymore.”

Despite his brother keeps walking next to him, trying to convince, he keeps walking too without a glance. Klaus looks everywhere, any billboard, any sign, behind his sunglasses and hidden with the big coat, but he doesn’t remember anything where he was tortured. He was kidnapped in a car when he was forced to enter and it was dark when he got out.

“You’ve been walking for hours, aren’t you tired?”

“I slept well the couple of hours I got to sleep. Besides, when you have the chance to save the half of your heart, you don’t get tired easily.”

Ben growls, but Klaus clearly listens and chooses to ignore.

“Would you at least tell me your plan?”

“I guess the others have already figured it out, but I want to steal the briefcase from exactly where I took it, the air vents from that motel. I’m looking for the motel.”

Ben doesn’t say anything in response, not right now.

Klaus and a ghost Ben are now in the queue of a tourism office in order to get a map from the city and its surroundings. The motels will be there for sure.

“At what time did you take the briefcase?”

“I don’t know. It was dark, probably 10 pm.” he mutters in the queue. Luther’s blue coat is pretty uncomfortable. “Five told us the Meritech event is at 7 pm, the others must be training with Van. We’ll be with them by then.”

“You sure?”

“Not really, but I just have to find the motel before 7 pm, even hours earlier.” he whispers, sighing. “I have so much to do...”

Ben tries to think of something else.

“If another version of yourself tells _you_ right now that he’s going to go back in time to stop you from meeting Dave, what would you do?”

Klaus pauses and stares at his brother, frowning, but he doesn’t say anything, which means Ben has hit the nail on the head. He can’t help but smile.

“I...” Klaus hesitates. He coughs and sighs, scratching his hands. “I... wouldn’t be... passionate about it.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like the idea of my memories from him being deleted from my mind!” Klaus hisses and Ben nods to him, making him realize Ben is right. “Ben, technically the Klaus from this universe hasn’t met Dave _yet_ , so it’s not deleting memories or any shit. I’m just preventing something _before_ it happens. Saving someone.”

“It’s not any someone and you know it.”

“Of course I do! That’s why I’m doing it!”

Luckily, Ben is already visible and solid for the people in the queue when everyone looks at them. They try to be subtler and be quieter.

“Okay, well, let’s take it from the other side, what would Dave think from you changing memories or your time together?”

Klaus clenches his jaw and Ben knows he has hit the nail on the head again.

“He...” Klaus gulps and cleans the sweat off his forehead. “He would even get mad at me for preventing him from meeting me.”

“And why is that?”

“Because he loved me.” he hisses and he has to gulp again to hold back tears. If he doesn’t like crying in private, imagine in public. His throat hurts. “And I loved him. I still do, that’s why I’m doing this.” He sighs with a stutter. “If I can save the life of someone like him, my pain is worth it.”

“Technically, it wouldn’t be your pain, it would be your copy’s.” Ben corrects. “You know, because this copy would still get high and all that jazz.”

“Yeah.”

“You will be fucking yourself up.”

“When haven’t I done that? Nothing different from before.” he says in a pessimistic tone; then, he sighs again and scratches his ear. He needs some sleep. “I... I don’t know. I am a lost cause.”

“Is there... something else you wanna tell me about all of this?”

Klaus opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He’s not ready for that, not yet.

“I’m... not in the mood, really.”

Ben understands.

“Okay. I’ll insist later.”

****~~~** **

“Okay. Stop.” Five tells her and Vanya immediately stops levitating some rocks; not stones, rocks. She leaves them on the concrete and takes a step back after that. She somehow feels different. She has been training three times counting this one. “See? It’s easier when you focus on the entirety of the object. It doesn’t matter the number.”

“Yeah, but... in the event of this afternoon, what if an entire wall is falling? How do I focus on something so big inside my bubble?”

The secret of the bubble is imagining something physical in your head and keeping strong memories in mind but at bay; also by concentrating on the physical.

“Hmm, I don’t know.” he says. He thinks about a solution while taping his foot on the floor and positioning his arms like a mom. “Let’s go outside.”

“We’re not supposed to go outs-”

“I know, just trust me.”

And Vanya trusts him.

The two siblings go outside but not before checking there’s no one even one mile away. Then, they walk around the un-constructed buildings under the midday Sun and look at one with all of its floors. This building is finished but not in the inside. There’s only floors and columns.

“What do I do?”

“Notice that billboard over there?” he asks by pointing at it, next to the old building with a thick, metallic pole that says _construction in progress_. Not anymore, at least. “Try to shake it.”

“Just shake it?”

“Yeah.” he answers. And that’s when his sister closes her eyes and breathes deeply. After some seconds, she’s able to focus on the sound that the billboard makes on its own, cracking and moving just a bit, and the billboard starts to move with her energy. For the moment, she just focuses on shaking it. It feels good. “Okay. Focus on pulling the sign from the pole.” Vanya tries so. She imagines as if she were breaking a paper in half inside her own mind. “Fine. Open your eyes.”

“What?”

“Trust me. Open them.”

Vanya sighs once more and she opens her eyes with new, growing confidence: it’s not whole, but it’s a beginning. She’s shivering but not in the bad sense. She sees as visible, white energy shines from her body and the sign, some yards away and up in the air, is being pulled out from its pole. She doesn’t space out, but she needs to make fists with her hands to pull out the whole sign, which would have made noise falling to the ground if it wasn’t for Vanya herself, who levitated it in time to leave it on the ground soundlessly.

She puffs after the effort (not big but enough to make her take a moment) and takes a step back. Her brother comes closer. She plays with her hang-nails while looking at the ground; there’s an ant playing with the metal tip of her shoes.

“Wow.” she mutters, putting her back straight and stretching her muscles. The Sun feels kind of bright right now.

“You did good. Really good.” he says. Looking proud of course, like her three brothers the first time they were in the industrial unit. It feels odd. She smiles with sadness. “What?”

“I...” she mutters and remembers briefly her conversation with Hazel. “Nothing. I hate being oversensitive, but-I was right.”

“About what?”

She squeezes her eyes. It would feel a lot better telling this to someone that’s not family. Feeling free. Talking to someone new.

“I needed to have a power to be included in the family.”

Five opens his mouth and closes it.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” he admits, nodding. “I guess we’re just compensating for lost time. A change for the better.”

Vanya now smiles with honesty, but something distracts them. They look at a yellow-ish orange light shining in the sky, moving around like a firework and with the same texture as a laser, but it’s much bigger than a laser.

“What is that?”

The light transforms into a stain of light and, then, disappears. Vanya turns to her brother, who understands and teleports them both back to the hideout in case someone’s looking for them. 

They land in front of the TV. Diego was reading some of his notes on the sofa but not anymore. The others get close.

“How was training?” Diego asks them, making sure his sister is okay.

“It was very good, she pulled out an entire billboard.” Five reports. Diego strokes her head. “But... something else happened.”

“What thing?” Allison asks, handing over Vanya a glass of water.

“We saw an orange light in the sky.” she responds after taking another sip of water. She sits on a chair. “Like a big dot pointing at nowhere, we didn’t know where it was coming from, but then, it got bigger and...”

They don’t get it.

“... disappeared.” Five finishes. The others stop doing what they’re doing and pay truly attention.

“What do you think it was?” Luther asks them.

“I don’t know,” Five frowns. “but it was like Vanya’s powers but in orange.” The others have no idea. _Heavy weights_ , he thinks. “By the way, haven’t heard anything about Klaus?”

“No.” Diego answers with pity. He would have done the same in his place... if he had the guts. He’s just... _scared_ of trying to do something to avoid Patch’s death because facing that situation again is too much. He doesn’t often realize how brave Klaus really is.

“Of course.” Five hisses. “Please, we have to keep looking for him. The Meritech event is in a couple of _hours_.”

They take a deep breath. Vanya shivers.

“We’ll split again, after lunch.” Luther states.

They eat something quickly and, then, Diego is the one who goes south and Allison and Hazel go north. The others go around a rooftop right in front of Meritech Prosthetics to keep it under surveillance; everything can happen in a couple of hours. It’s almost 3 pm when they teleport to the roof.

“What do we have to wait now?” Luther asks, looking at the doors. The streets are kind of busy, but _that_ building is totally ignored by people.

“If my maths are correct,” Five calculates looking at a map of that neighborhood. “the copies, Hazel and Cha-Cha are trying to torture Klaus in order to take info. He will give it to them and, then, they both arrive to destroy the building we have to protect. My copy will arrive too late. I hope the others come back earlier than it, otherwise, we’re just three. We would be fucked up.”

If Vanya looks uneasy, Luther is utterly scared somehow.

“What do we do?”

Five shakes his head and shrugs.

“No idea. Just... wait.”

Five hates waiting, but it’s the only thing they can do now.

****~~~** **

Allison rubs her eyes. Too much Sun. She used to be one of those celebrities that didn’t like to wear sunglasses because they made her dizzy. They still do, but taking them off would uncover her despite her wig. At least, Hazel prepared himself better and hands her water several times.

It’s already 5 pm. There’s not much time left. She doesn’t know about Diego, but she’s already coming to the rooftop Five has indicated to them if they don’t find Klaus soon. Some minutes pass and they stop around a corner. They’re close to the suburbs and there’s less people than before, but it’s not deserted. Meritech is not that far, if she leaves in a couple of minutes, it’s more than enough.

“Woah, look, Ally.”

She looks where Hazel is pointing at, someone wearing a bright blue coat and sunglasses similar to hers, hiding behind a big green trash can next to a building some yards away from a motel.

“That’s Klaus?” Hazel asks. The person behind the trash can moves hair off shoulders and stands up a little bit to see the motel better; moving like a monkey on one of the branches of a tree and kinda looking pathetic and desperate. “He is!”

“Wait here.” Allison tells him, crosses the wide road and gets closer carefully behind the cars. Later, she makes sure no one is around and moves behind the trash can, where her brother notices her and tries to get away like a scared dog running away from a cat. “Hey! Hey, calm down.”

Allison blinks quickly as Klaus takes a deep breath, moving his head nervously.

“Calm down?” He huffs a laugh. “Of course I am, sis’.” he chuckles but grinding his teeth. “I’m perfectly fine.”

Now she’s the one who chuckles.

“No, you’re not.”

Klaus’ voice trembles and he bows his head. He’s not ready for this, not yet. 

“Of course I’m not.” he mutters. He bites his lips and sighs. It doesn’t feel any better. “I’m not.”

Allison lets silence settle quite some time. She knows better than anyone that she’s not a love expert, but she’s the first in lending her shoulder for people to cry on it when they need her... except Luther, who has to take everyone’s shit and always put a middle term in difficult situations. Who does he rely on when he needs someone?

“Well, we... we supposed you’re planning to steal the briefcase from the air vents.” she says softly and he nods, taking off his sunglasses and so does she. Luckily, there are not many people around, even less around that motel. “Are you sure that’s...?”

“I already told this to Ben, whom I’ve sent away at the moment ‘cause I needed to think.” he says without glancing at his sister. His eyes are nervous and spaced out in a pigeon standing on a high voltage tower. “I know that’s what Dave wouldn’t have wanted, but if there’s any chance in the world of saving someone like _him_ , I’ll take it. Besides, I already have my memories. I’m not deleting any of them, technically.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” she mutters. Klaus didn’t expect someone to agree in this moment. He looks at her, confused. She reads his eyes. “You’re right... but, is there... is there anything else from all of this?”

Klaus’ eyes tremble and get wet. He clenches his jaw, sighs and looks at the closest building behind them.

“I...” he says, trembling. “I... I _fucked_ up.” He gives up. “When we were sent to the front lines, Dave was scared shitless, afraid of losing me, so I... I told him to stay on my left so as not to lose sight of me, a place where a bullet exactly was shot towards him... He would have lived if he didn’t sit on my left if...”

Allison hugs her brother when this one sheds tears, trembling, sobbing. Then, she cleans his face, but his eyes are still closed. He can’t deal with this.

“You blame yourself.” she claims. The answer is more than obvious. “You think you’re saving him from what you said, but what if... Klaus, look at me.” Klaus looks at her with teary eyes. The sight shocks her. Someone in love, someone desperate, someone who wants to save a person who means the world to him instead of focusing on saving the world itself. At the same time, she thinks that doesn’t make him selfish.

“What?”

“Even though you’re right about the memories, how can you be one hundred percent sure this is gonna work? I mean, maybe it doesn’t. He can die in Vietnam on his own.” She doesn’t want to say this next thing, but she needs to. “He would have died either way without you.”

“I know...” he rubs his eyes. He sighs and looks back at her eyes. “But I already told you I’d save him even if I’m just one percent sure. One percent is better than a zero percent.”

Because that means that there were zero chances that Dave survived with Klaus on the war.

They stay in silence for a little bit and, by then, the Sun is turning slowly to pink. Allison knows that they should go back immediately. But Klaus is in his own fight.

“So, this is it?” she asks. This time, he’s looking at a button from Allison’s dark green jacket. “Are you just gonna take Dave away from your own copy?”

Klaus frowns.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that, yeah, you don’t care if you don’t make yourself meet Dave because you would help Luther’s copy and yourself to help in the theater in the third event, but...” She finds the right words. “Think about it, are you going to take that glimpse of happiness he _could_ have?” Allison pauses and Klaus is frozen in place. “Imagine, you’re in one of those raves you usually went to and someone turned to you and said that there’s one person in the entire world that can make you truly happy. What would you say?”

Just for some seconds, Allison makes him keep quiet, just like when they were kids. Then, Klaus is able to talk.

“ _First_ , I’d say it’s stupid after laughing.” he confesses. He cleans dried tears off his cheeks and sighs. “Then... I’d confess that I don’t even know what happiness is.”

“But you _could_. Your copy could.”

Klaus sobs and hides his face on his knees. After Allison hugs him again for a couple of minutes, he gets a bit away and breathes out, defeated, exhausted. She realizes it’s a bigger decision to make just in some seconds or minutes, at least, not in his case.

“I’m going to Meritech.” she says, standing up. “Our sister needs us.” Shit. Klaus knows that. What the hell is he doing? Can he do this? “Come as soon as possible. But... I’ll leave this decision to you.” She turns around. “I trust you.”

**_**[“Tears In Heaven”, Eric Clapton]** _ **

_... Would you hold my hand_

_If I saw you in heaven?_

_Would you help me_ **_**stand** _ **

_If I saw you in heaven?_

_I’ll find_ **_**my way**_** _through night and day_

_‘Cause I know I just can’t stay here in heaven_

****~~~** **

On their way to the prosthetics, Allison and Hazel tell Diego on the talkie to go there already. Diego freaks out when they tell the others on the talkie that they found Klaus but he’s not coming, at least, anytime soon. Five wants to call him selfish, but Vanya says it’s okay because she’s the one who told Klaus he wasn’t, that she’s going to be fine no matter at what time Klaus arrives as long as he ends up coming. Whether this ends up on success or a disaster.

It’s half past six. They’re on the rooftop together. Five is calculating mentally all of their possibilities depending on their actions, Hazel is checking the talkies and other weapons he kept from the Commission when he went to 1952 with Agnes, Luther can’t stop looking at the building and Allison and Diego are making sure Vanya is calm and not freaking out for not freaking out themselves.

“Right now, the copy of Klaus must have already told the copies of the two idiots to come here.” Five says, looking at the cheapest watch Hazel got in the market. Hazel, who frowns for their nickname. He doesn’t get used to it, but he’s saying nicknames here and there. “And my copy will be coming too but too late. We’re seven against two, it shouldn’t be a big deal.”

“Yeah, it shouldn’t...” Hazel comments, hesitating. “You’re always using logic, but you forget one thing.”

“And what thing is that?” he asks with sarcasm.

“The fact that _us_ , the originals, are being pursued by the Commission too. And you said that they’re using new heavy weights. I thought you knew that.”

Five stays open-mouthed. They had all thought that some heavy weights could be used now, but they forgot about it. Then, he cusses and turns to his siblings.

“What?” Diego asks.

“Uhm, I hope I’m the only one who didn’t think that we’re being pursued by the Commission and they’re doing it with everything they have, right?” The others open their mouths too. Diego puts his hand on Vanya’s shoulder for not making her space out, thinking about everything they could do wrong now that there’s the possibility that the copies of Hazel and Cha-Cha could have hidden weapons. They already imagine the shooters with the machine guns and the bombs... or worse, the ground analyzer. “Well, shit. It’s... It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.” Luther says, frowning. “In that case, we don’t really know how many workers will be and what kind of things they’re gonna use as heavy weights. We know their weaponry is advanced. They’re probably hidden around here too.”

“We can’t leave this behind, Luther!” Five hisses, making him realize there’s no other way. “We have to avoid this because, this way, there’s a chance my copy could discover where the eye is from. We have to be careful but efficient.”

“He’s right.” Allison says. Luther puffs but doesn’t say anything else. Vanya gives him a reassuring look. Luther feels better. “Guys, look.”

Under the disappearing Sun, they look through binoculars that, five miles away, the _two idiots_ are getting close to the Meritech Prosthetics in a very weird way.

“Woah, what was happening to you, guys?” Allison questions and Hazel cringes.

“We had tortured Klaus with destroying his drugs and we ended up eating chocolate with marihuana...”

There’s no time for laughing or making shit about it. Klaus would have laughed, though. Where’s a Klaus when you need him to soften tension?

“Okay...” Five mutters and breathes in and, then, out. He closes his eyes for a few seconds and, then, he opens them with determination. “Guys.” he looks at his siblings, who look both terrified and willing to do anything in this first event. Vanya’s mind is spinning. “Ready?” They take a very deep breath and they nod. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Five takes their hands and teleports them inside Meritech Prosthetics, waiting for the right moment. It’s dark inside, but they think they’re in an intermediate level of the stairs. There’s a little bit of sunlight coming inside by the translucent window. There’s more sunlight outside, but these windows are thick enough to cover most of it.

“Are you calm?” Allison asks Vanya, who nods in the middle of the obscure ambient. “Let us know right away if you feel bad or uneasy.”

Five and Hazel turn on their flashlights. There’s only silence for the moment. Just when they start going downstairs to inspect the zone, the shooting starts, breaking a glass window. Vanya startles. Diego acts fast and takes her hand; the others run behind both of them, to the closest door of the intermediate level. There’s a large hall.

“My stupid me and Cha-Cha are behind the building, shooting at a window.” Hazel says, deactivating the safety of the guns he hands over to Luther, Five and to himself. “Follow me.”

Luther and Five follow Hazel back to the door where they came from and get closer to the window in order to counterattack. On the other side, Diego stays around the zone making surveillance at some yards of distance, lighting with his own flashlight, and Allison turns to her sister and holds her shoulder with determination.

“Hey, look at me.” she says. Vanya doesn’t seem in her own place, she’s out of herself. Unfocused. Allison touches her cheek and she stops spacing out. “Breathe.” She does that with her eyes closed and focuses on her sister’s voice. “We’ll be with you _all_ this time. We’re here for you now, you’re not alone anymore. We’re here for you.” She hugs her briefly. “We’re together, by your side, okay?”

Vanya opens her eyes, her eyes focus and she nods.

“Okay.”

The bubble.

Vanya stands around a table with a computer and closes her eyes again. She moves her body a little bit in order to make her muscles relax. She concentrates on herself and on her energy blending together like two puzzle pieces. She takes deep breaths when she starts feeling the pale energy coming out of herself and going around that level some seconds later; she feels the sounds of the walls, the corridors, the air.

“You’re doing excellent.” she hears Allison saying, cheering up. Vanya uses the sound of her voice too and takes it in the bubble. Not like before but not anymore. Vanya knows that.

Vanya focuses her power on going through the doors of the stairs of that level and going through the windows. The power makes something similar to an invisible shield where the copy of Hazel and Cha-Cha can’t get in; they both must be asking themselves what is going on, why the bullets stop in the middle of the air and don’t enter the building. They must be already trying to figure out how to get inside, for example, by rounding the building and having to get inside through the main entrance.

Vanya trembles when she notices the sounds of the bullets against her abilities. The shots are clearly a noticeable sound to her.

“What is it?” Allison asks, worried, and her sister opens her white eyes.

“I... I feel...”

The bullets feel stronger with every hit against her abilities. She has to grinds her teeth for not falling apart, but minutes later, she has activated the shield, she feels as if each bullet is being shot at her heart, her soul. She frowns and makes fists with her trembling hands. In fact, her entire body now is shaking.

_Let the memories, bad and good ones, pass by your mind._

And she does exactly that. However, it’s much harder when she’s trying to protect an entire building with herself, feeling a burning energy inside her stomach and while her breath starts stuttering.

Exactly how it felt when she was being choked by Luther hours before the apocalypse.

“Vanya?”

She hears Diego’s voice before she feels the shot of Hazel’s bazooka against her power rounding the wall of the building, which makes her knees feel weak and cause all of the window glasses of that entire floor to break with her wave sound. The energy around the building stops.

While Vanya tries to recover her breath, Allison kneels next to her and strokes her back.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here...”

Vanya sobs and covers her face with her hands.

“Sorry...” she sobs again.

Luther, Five and Hazel come back to that room and Luther runs to kneel with her but doesn’t touch her. He knows it has something to do with him.

“Hey.” he mutters. She looks at him with tears on her face mixed with sweat because she’s sweating all around as well. “You’ve just made a mistake. It’s a mistake, so what? We’re not over yet. We still have a chance.”

And when Luther reaches his hand out, Vanya does take it slowly. However, she stays on the floor with her siblings, while Hazel, Diego and Five try to attack the copy of Hazel and Cha-Cha without being spotted with their own guns.

“Think you can go again?” Allison questions and, after some seconds, she’s able to nod.

Vanya gets into a similar position than earlier but still sitting on the cold floor. Her siblings get away from her a little bit but not too much. She starts with it again and it’s okay, at least, for some minutes. Later, the building itself starts to tremble all over and Vanya feels that strange tremble inside herself, the sounds all of the walls shaking, the glasses, the tables. The building is moving on its own.

“Are you doing this?” Luther asks, watching as the pillars and the ceiling are moving. His sister shakes her head.

“I-It’s not me...”

_Remember that Jack was inventing a kind of ground analyzer?_

Allison understands and she’s about to remind them, but the floor starts to move now. First, soft; then, stronger than Vanya’s power. She screams and her energy stops once more, forcing her to almost faint. Luther takes her in his arms and he shares a glance with Allison, both worried. Then, they notice that Vanya is still letting energy waves out. She’s not stopping.

Vanya is going down. So is Meritech Prosthetics.

“Sorry...” Vanya gets to mutter. Flashes of white energy get out from her, making Luther to drop her, and she gets away from her siblings towards a window of the hall. Allison and Luther stare at her while the others try to defend themselves the best they can. On the other side, Vanya’s eyes are already glowing and her chest is doing it too. She starts to step back slowly, looking all around their own earthquake caused by the Commission.

“Vanya?” Allison sobs.

Her sister spins around and before they can go after her, she creates her own bubble-defense so that they can’t even get close. With flowy and messy hair, sloppy clothes and a defensive energy, she gets away from them without looking back. They think she got out of a window, but they can’t see shit.

“Shit.” Luther mutters. He looks at Allison, who looks like she’s going after her sister anytime soon, so he takes her hand forcing her to stay again. He just couldn’t let both of them get close to Vanya in that state.

“No! Let me go with her!”

“No!” he screams. “Not now. We have to get out of here with the others.”

They get back together. Hazel, Diego and Five have been injured several times, so Hazel manages to teleport them with the briefcase to the closest park of the zone. Once they land there, under the small Sun of the dusk and on the sand of the park, they see as the building collapses, both because of the ground analyzer that guy Jack has invented (supported by the copy of Hazel and Cha-Cha with guns) and also because of Vanya’s own collapsing. It must have been an hour since they got inside.

Five grinds his teeth. He punches the sand under his chest and curses out loud, without caring about anything.

“FUCK!”

Hazel touches his shoulder, but Five gets away from it.

“No, Five, look!”

They all look at where Hazel is pointing at. Almost one mile away there’s the collapsing building, dusty, a lot of noise, with fire because of several shots by the bazooka, a real disaster they couldn’t avoid, and the copy of Hazel is next to two people: Cha-Cha, who’s celebrating joyfully their success (of course, high like her partner) and a young guy with brown beard, blue eyes and long but round face they haven’t ever seen in their lives. Not even Five or Hazel have seen him.

“Is that Jack?” Diego asks Hazel and Five, who shake their heads. “Who is he?”

The guy with the dark, brown beard smiles and hands-five to the copy of Hazel in drugs. The three of them are celebrating it next to the fence behind the destroyed prosthetics’. The new dude shakes his hands and cracks his neck. Then, he smiles with pride and... levitates in the air a piece of land in celebration before they start getting away with success.

“Who is that?” Diego insists to Five, who’s frozen in place. “Do you know him?”

Five closes his eyes. _Forty three gifted children._

“One of the _heavy weights_.”

****~~~** **

“Dude. It’s 8 pm.” Ben whispers into his brother’s ear. “You’re taking too long. The rest must have already finished with Meritech. The Sun is almost down.”

“I’m not an expert with air vents, okay?”

Klaus is hidden behind the building of the motel, trying to get inside the air vents with a screwdriver. As Hazel and Cha-Cha are gone, he doesn’t have much time until they come back. Or worse, he has even less time for his copy to escape with Patch’s help. He must have more than half an hour until Patch frees him.

“So, this is it?” Ben mutters. “Is this your final decision?” Klaus nods. “Can I ask why?”

“I’ve thought about this for a long time, even since 1952.” he explains. Fuck, he’s bad with tools. “I said to myself that despite young Dave wasn’t my Dave, he was going to meet _me_ someday. But no, because... Dave is not the only person between seven billions of people on Earth who can make me happy, you know?” Ben tilts his head, giving him reason with that point. “I’m sure there are people as worthy as him, at least, for this Klaus. I already have my good memories, with my Dave.”

“I get that.” Ben understands. “Then, Dave wasn’t so unique after all?”

Klaus grinds his teeth and gets to open two of the screws. He clenches his jaw and looks at Ben, frowning.

“He was. He still is. But for _me_. There can be more people from this parallel universe who can make my copy happy. But our world is destroyed, Ben. I can’t get to meet more chances of happiness because our Earth is gone.”

Klaus celebrates in silence when he opens the entire grating of the entrance. He leaves it behind and gets inside like a snake. Sliding inside is easy, but he hadn’t thought a small but important detail.

Claustrophobia.

He has to breathe in and out several times in order to keep going inside the thin air vents. He even sees the terrifying faces of dead people inside his mind, closing his eyes once and again. In fact, sometimes it’s too hard because he has to jump and climb. He didn’t remember it was this difficult the first time he was in there, but then again, he was in a rush to escape from that place.

He gets lost in the air conducts, but then, five minutes since he got inside, he turns around by a small corner and sees _the_ briefcase. Dark brown, not new, not old, medium size. The one that drew him into a whole other world, the one who made him meet _his_ one. He drags towards it and touches it slightly for not messing it up. He remembers that he disappeared into 1968 by pressing randomly the small buttons in the top part, around the handles. He’s not touching that. He carefully looks through the grating and sees the room he was tortured in in another universe. He ignores that aspect and sees that a lady is finishing cleaning the room. Perfect, that means that the two idiots aren’t coming back for an hour like he calculated, when they will hide in the room and kill Patch.

He hasn’t talked about that with Diego.

The lady leaves and his copy is making noise in the wardrobe, but the doors stop. His copy must feel desperate, defeated, exhausted. Just like him.

Klaus, the original one, sighs and touches the bottom of the briefcase with his forehead. He closes his eyes with determination and he opens them back, he backtracks in his path, gets out of the air vents and leaves with the briefcase in his hands under the dying Sun of the day.

****~~~** **

“Vanya!?” Allison screams, but she won’t answer. This is like 1952 all over again and she’s tired. Diego is right; it’s getting repetitive. They’ve been walking for an hour. “Vanya!?”

“If you keep screaming, the copy of our sister could listen, don’t you think?” Five reminds.

“What’s your plan, then?” Diego says.

They look around the large park but nothing. Not even a trace. If only Luther and Allison had seen which window she escaped through.

“Where could she be?” Allison asks and, then, out of the blue, Five snaps.

“The industrial unit!” Five takes their hands almost immediately, without letting them reflect on it, so they land on the industrial unit after some seconds and, just like that, they hear noises outside. They get out of there and they see through some lights in the sky, thirty yards away, as their sister is floating brightly in the middle of the air, right in front of the billboard she destroyed, and also moving all of the bricks of this building. She’s just moving the bricks in a circle with no order. Before Allison can get close with impulsiveness, Five takes her hands and forces her to stay. “Wait, we have to think about something. Now the world isn’t ending, we can think.”

Allison is not happy about it, but she stays.

“What do we do?” Diego questions, taking off the sweat of his longer hair, and looking at his sister. “I mean, I could try something.”

“ _You_?” Five spits. “The one who takes any advantage to make fun of Luther.”

“I’m not doing _that_ with her!” he insists. “I can try.” They have no other option. Diego takes a deep breath with the help of a sweet breeze of wind against his face and gets closer step by step until he’s inside the imaginary fence of the building his sister is messing up with. He’s not scared. He looks up. “Vanya?” That’s loud enough for her to listen. She looks down at him from her position, like ten yards away. She doesn’t say anything nor moves. She’s still using her telekinesis to move the entire building. “Van, come down. Let’s talk. It’s not your fault.”

Vanya raises a hand towards him and, before Diego knows what’s happening, she makes him levitate in the air and go back where the others are. Hazel takes his shoulder for support.

“Okay, I’m next.” Five says. “I’ll try.”

“ _You_?” now Diego mocks and Five puffs in exasperation. Allison sighs as her siblings argue. She’s about to offer herself to convince Vanya to get down when she sees two men running towards that building.

“Guys, look!”

They turn around to see Klaus and Ben running towards the building. Klaus moves his hands in front of himself and they turn blue. It turns out that was for making Ben intangible again. They don’t understand why until they see Ben walking carefully under the light of their sister and position for her to see him.

“Vanya!” he screams. She looks at him with white eyes and raises her hand, but Ben doesn’t move because he’s not solid. “Vanya! Let’s talk! Come down.” Vanya doesn’t move the slightest. Her face is still, but her eyes are so expressive. “It’s not your fault, whatever happened back there!” Vanya feels a pang in her chest. Were they actually expecting her to fail? Because Ben and Klaus weren’t there. “We know you messed up. But look at us! We also mess it up too, once and over again. That doesn’t matter, we have each other now.”

She doesn’t move. She stays still for the moment, but her body is decisive.

After long seconds, she looks back at the building and with a simple motion, the bricks go back to their places and their sister is standing on the ground again, but she doesn’t turn off the energy from her body. She looks at Ben. Her eyes reflect anguish.

“If I did wrong in this first event, I’m gonna do wrong in the Moon one.”

There’s a total certainty in her voice. Ben knows.

“You’re right.” he says, taking a step forward. “You’re totally right. We still have a second chance with the second event.”

“The second event is saving the guy who manipulated me.” she hisses.

“You’re right about that too.” Ben nods and gets close to her. He’s not afraid of her, even if he was tangible right now. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Neither do the others. The only thing we have left is moving on to our next missions. Together.”

Vanya stays still for some minutes. Then, she closes her eyes, the energy from her body disappears and, when she opens her eyelids again, her eyes are brown once more. Ben nods with pride, takes her hands (after Klaus has made him solid again) and hugs her. Vanya sobs and hugs him back for a while. She vents everything she was keeping inside the last few hours. Later, she takes a deep breath and moves away. The others, despite not hearing it well, notice as Ben asks her how she’s now and she answers she feels better, that she’s tired.

Klaus gets closer to them and these three to the others. Allison runs to hug her and doesn’t get too away.

“I imagine what must have happened, but...” Klaus mutters under the shadow of a pole. “What happened?”

Before Five can blame Klaus for not being there, Luther intervenes.

“Well, when we were fighting against the copies of the two... _partners_...” Hazel is thankful for avoiding the nickname they got. “... the ground started to move the entire building very strong, like our own earthquake.”

“The ground analyzer?” Ben asks.

“Yeah, but it’s not a machine.” Five interrupts. “It’s a man.”

Klaus and Ben open their mouths in surprise, bad surprise.

“You mean that he’s one of...?”

“... one of the other forty three children.” Five finishes and he notices that Klaus has something hidden. He wrinkles his nose. “Tell me you didn’t do it.”

Klaus shows them the briefcase and Luther intervenes for Five not to mess it up. Instead, the little one grinds his teeth.

“That’s your final decision?” the big guy says to Klaus with decision. “That’s your call?”

“It is.” Klaus states.

“What about Dave?” he insists. “You didn’t let him make a call.”

“He can’t ‘cause he’s dead!” he hisses instead of shouting. He starts stuttering. “And the one from this universe could die too if I didn’t do this.” he protests. “I did it already, this is my choice, _period_.”

“Okay. I know, it’s your choice and I’ll support you no matter what.” Luther keeps insisting with a calmer tone. “Just, think about the consequences, Klaus, and the happi-”

“Yeah, and the happiness I could take from my copy, but there are people who can make him hap-”

“No.” he interrupts. Klaus is already scratching his palms. He doesn’t get it. “Think about _the_ happiness Dave granted you. Don’t think about good times another person could give to someone like you, but the ones the Dave from this universe can give to your copy.” Klaus stays frozen with the briefcase in his hands. Luther looks at the others, who are a bit uncomfortable for listening to what could have been a private conversation. Nevertheless, in these times they can’t give themselves privacy. “I know you can’t do anything else, but... think about it, Klaus.” Klaus stays frozen in place for the millionth time in the past few weeks. Luther gives him space and turns around. “Let’s go back to the hideout.”

“Now?” Hazel asks, wrinkling his nose and stretching his muscles. They could definitely use a good night’s sleep. “Oof, I’m tired, but I’m nervous for what happened with Meritech.”

Five realizes that they haven’t even asked how Hazel is handling all of this, they even suspected from him.

“He’s right.” Allison says, still close to her sister. “What if we make surveillance around here? It’s still early, it’s not long since the Sun is gone.”

Five shrugs. He must be tired too.

They start to split a little bit to walk around the zone, except Klaus, still frozen on his spot, holding the briefcase.

 _What about the happiness that_ he _granted you?_

Klaus remembers the dream he had tonight.

_“Would you want me to change everything about us if I could?”_

Dave had told him no, even if he was dead.

Dave had _actually_ made a call in all of this.

Klaus remembers most of their times together. The dark tent, the bus, their first kiss in the disco, how they used to hide from their squad to spend some alone time... their first time in the cabin far away from the nearest camp, when they gave each other their hearts between sighs of pleasure and tangled legs. How they argued heavily once or twice because Dave _got_ to think once that he didn’t deserve someone as unique as Klaus, despite him telling him over and over again that he did deserve him. How they promised to escape as soon as the war was done and why they couldn’t do it.

With the powers he possesses, it would be naive of him to think that he can’t conjure him if he hasn’t even tried once. He did try, after Five had returned from 1955, but he decided to help a desperate Luther because it was his choice. Now, his choice was about to be replacing one kind of happiness with another one. But his own copy wouldn’t get to have _the_ happiness, one with Dave.

 _Fuck it_.

“Five!” he screams, running towards him. “Take me back to the motel!”

Five spins around and frowns.

“What?”

Ben gets close to his brothers.

“Take me back to the motel. Please!”

“You gotta be kidding me...” he mutters, covering his mouth with his hands after stroking his face, being tired. He didn’t even fight that much in Meritech, he just fired some guns. “I don’t know where it is.”

“I do.” Hazel gets closer with his own briefcase. He starts to adjust it to the place.

“Thank you, Haz.”

“Please.” Five tells Hazel, Klaus and Ben, who look back at him. “We’re talking about timelines. Be careful.”

Klaus nods and they disappear.

They’re back near the motel just a few seconds later. They hide behind some cars and look all around them. It’s way darker than the last time Klaus was there, so it’s harder to be attentive. Klaus frowns with nervousness and bites his lip.

“I’ll wait here, just in case.” Hazel says behind both of them.

“What now?” Ben asks his brother.

Klaus is about to answer that he’s going to go back to the air vents, but he sees as a man, a towel, bloody face, something as a dark jacket around him, runs on the same sidewalk where they are, passing by their small corner.

Himself. His copy. With no briefcase.

The original one frowns and puffs with determination.

**_**[“Immigrant Song”, Led Zeppelin]** _ **

_We come from the land of the ice and snow_

_From the midnight sun, where the hot springs flow_

_The hammer of the gods_

_We’ll drive our ships to new lands_

_To fight the horde, and sing and cry_

_Valhalla, I am coming!_

“Help me.” Klaus tells Ben, who nods and starts running next to him. They keep running and see the copy doing that too, in the middle of the darkness, looking all around. The copy looks at a bus stop, goes there and waits for one. He’s about twenty yards away and the bus passes next to them. “Shit! Make me jump!”

Ben, already tangible, activates his inner tentacles, which one of those take Klaus in the air and throws him straightforward. Klaus falls to the ground and, despite the possible bruises, he throws the briefcase on the floor towards the bus stop; he immediately hides behind a streetlight.

The copy notices something touches his left ankle just as the bus arrives and the driver opens the door; he looks both at the persistent driver waiting for him and the dark briefcase on the floor. It looks like he’s making a big decision without knowing he’s making one.

“Come on. Take it.” the original Klaus mutters, close to desperation. His breath stutters. “Take it.”

The copy sighs, bends down, takes the briefcase, gets inside the vehicle and the bus leaves.

Klaus cleans the sweat off his forehead and puffs with a big relief. He puts his hand on his heart and sighs while resting his hand on a wall. Ben gets closer.

“You did it, right?”

“What do you mean?” He shrugs with a very neutral expression on his face while looking at the sky. “That I’ve just sentenced Dave to death or this mission?”

Ben tilts his head.

“Both.”

Hazel arrives.

“I thought you wouldn’t get too far away from me.” he says. “Did you do it?”

“Yes.” Klaus nods. He’s worried now. Five is always talking about how a frigging cockroach can change the events of time or something like that. “But... _I_ took the briefcase from the air vents, not the floor of the bus stop. Could you... Could you check out tomorrow at 9 am if my other self arrives the same as I did, Haz?”

“No problem. What were you...?”

“I didn’t have a helmet, I had a dark beige uniform soldier, both jacket without sleeves and pants, big dark boots, silver dog tags, a tattoo saying _sky soldiers_...” By then, Hazel is already taking notes in his small notebook. “Blo... Blood on my hands and chest a little bit too...” He gulps. “I... I had the briefcase. I arrived at the bus stop right there.” He points at the bus stop from the sidewalk in front of them. Hazel writes the hour and the address of the street. “There’s also another way of being one hundred percent sure.”

“Which is...?”

“There’s a bar called _veterans of foreign wars_ on the 15th Yellow Avenue. There’s a picture of my squad there, where Dave was too.”

Hazel strokes his chin with the pencil.

“How do I know it’s Dave the guy next to you in the picture?”

Klaus wants to say _he was beautiful as hell_ , but he doesn’t. He describes that picture to Haz the best he can remember. Hazel writes everything.

“Haz? Thank you.” Hazel nods. “We should... We should go back.”

“You fine?” Ben asks him. Klaus shakes his head. Of course he’s not. He would have been content to avoid himself from meeting Dave, but his copy has to go through it. This is his final choice, yeah, but it feels like shit. “Yeah, let’s go back.”

This is it. Now he can actually postpone his own problems for later because, at least, there won’t be any more surprises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a point of view from the Handler anytime soon... if ever?  
> [ "earthquake maker": Chris Evans ]


	6. 2x05: "Spoiling for a Fight"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is the Handler really so willing to tell them about herself in order to make chaos?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fifth episode | Song: "Spoiling for a Fight", by AC/DC

_I see trouble coming man,_

_Well I’m coming back to a fork,_

_Sliding down a road,_

_Gonna lick ‘em on down,_

_We’re gonna run right out,_

_I’m a **fighting** **fool** ,_

_And I’m hungry for you,_

_Well I’m living on a line,_

_I’m protecting my life,_

_Rock with me, come on come one_

**~~~**

Hazel, like he has promised Klaus last night, wakes up around 9 am (before the others do), prepares himself and takes their briefcase, which teleports him to a rooftop with the indications his fella left him correctly. He hides himself better and looks through some binoculars until he spots the bus stop that Klaus indicated. He’s going to appear anytime soon.

The hour arrives and, just like his companion has narrated, a bus stops where he’s watching. Someone gets out of the vehicle; someone with bloody hands and chest, dark beige soldier clothes (jacket and pants), no helmet, big dark boots, silver dog tags and a tattoo. The bus leaves on its way. Hazel recognizes him quickly. It’s the copy of Klaus, who has got out of the vehicle with the dark briefcase on its hands. Hazel adjusts his binoculars better and sees the black tattoo on the left arm: a skull and on top of it, some words, from which the two biggest ones are _sky soldiers_.

This was supposed to happen. Hazel would have been glad about that, but then, he sees as the copy looks at the briefcase and begins to destroy it, screaming, sobbing, then lying on the ground, being consumed by a deep sorrow, being blocked by loss. It leaves him breathless. This is not easy to look at, so he diverts his eyes.

“Shit.” he mutters. He can’t even begin to imagine the pain the copy must be going through, the pain the original one went through. He loves Agnes with all his heart and he’d do anything to keep her safe, even if they’re away from each other. Their story is kind of funny. Once they took the briefcase and went to the forties, they spent weeks in a hotel in the middle of World War I, but they had a good time in New York. They met a really nice guy with a coffee shop and a really nice woman in her forties, so they were kind of sad when they had to leave because of the war. When they were in Pennsylvania in the fifties, they spent two years in a small apartment until the kid-looking Hargreeves arrived and turned his life into chaos again, but he couldn’t say no to them. When they were resting under the shadow of a big billboard, he called Agnes to tell her to go to New York and find her friends. He knows she’s safe.

Hazel snaps. Klaus is still mourning on the cold sidewalk. That’s what the original Klaus went through? Crap. That’s shitty as hell. Life _is_ unfair, isn’t it? Being given a glimpse of happiness for then being taken away?

Hazel shakes his head and keeps his binoculars inside his bag. One hundred sure that this was supposed to happen, but he needs to confirm it.

On his way to the 15th Yellow Avenue, he carefully takes his talkie and clicks the number four. He takes some seconds to answer.

 _“_ Yeah?” Klaus asks, not sounding sleepy at all. It’s logical, he mustn’t have slept much. _“Haz, is everything okay?”_

“Yeah.” he responds. “Everything is fine. It happened exactly as you told me.”

Klaus keeps silent. Maybe because he doesn’t know if to be calm or be on edge again because of the fact that the Dave from this universe has died too. He gets it.

 _“Really, Haz?”_ he mutters, hesitating and nervous. He doesn’t know what to say. _“Really... Thank you so much, man. I-I would have gone myself to check it out if it happened the same way, but I-I couldn’t watch-”_

“It’s fine, dude, no worries.” he reassures. “We’re one hundred percent sure, but I’ll go to the bar you told me, just in case.”

_“Okay. Thanks again, man.”_

Hazel arrives at the bar he indicated and, before the two clients and the bartender look at him weird for being there, he pretends he has fought in some battles of the Iraq war, without proving it. They believe him, but he tries to be fast in this.

Hazel looks around the old photos and finds one on a green board (a board whose top says _Vietnam war_ ) with other pictures. This pic in particular is a beige-ish one; it’s a squad preparing for training, with clothes and guns but everyone posing for the picture except the leader. On the right of the squad there are two men; the one on the left is Klaus with a shirt and helmet and, to his left, there’s a man; shirt and helmet too. This other man doesn’t have any trail of a beard (maybe he does have, but this guy is blond; also the quality of the pic is not advanced enough to notice it better); he’s right by Klaus’ side, his skin clear but not pale, he has strong muscles and he’s just a little bit taller than Klaus.

_Oh, he also had a small tiny star on the visor of his helmet, more or less in the center, almost not visible._

This guy has that small star in the center. This dude is exactly as Klaus described. This is David Katz.

“Hello, David.” Haz mutters. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Klaus is losing his mind without you, man.” Hazel shakes his head. What a group, huh? All of them, including him, can’t leave in peace with the guilt on their shoulders. He has been trying to apologize to Klaus for torturing him, but they’re always interrupted. He decided to do this out of pity, but now, it’s not that. He tightens his eyelids. “This is madness. Crap, this is madness. Why does death take good people too? I’d die if Agnes was killed.” He sighs and shakes his head again. “Oh, what the hell?”

Hazel takes a disposable camera and, after aligning properly for a good quality, he takes a picture of the picture. The men in the bar are about to rage for doing that, but Haz runs towards the exit. The men in the bar, both the clients and the bartender, pursue him as fast as him; he’s about to get caught several times, but Hazel shoots one of them with a gun, hides in an alley and teleports near a photography store and, later, back to the hideout.

****~~~** **

“Haz told me he’s coming soon.” Klaus says, getting out of the shower, clean and clear. “About half an hour after he told me.” It’s half past nine and they are getting ready for breakfast. Allison has managed to prepare decent sandwiches. Klaus is getting tired of red color, so he’s just in a bright purple shirt and white pants. Five gets out of the kitchen drinking orange juice and Klaus turns to him. “Hey, man...” His brother glances at him. Five is wearing the same jacket and pants from the suit but a lilac shirt. His glance is indecipherable. “I-I wanted to apologize for the scandal of the mote-”

“Don’t worry.”

Klaus gulps and opens his eyes wider while raising an eyebrow.

“Huh, really? Just like that?”

Five shrugs.

“Well, it’s early.” he jokes. “Besides, Allison has given me a speech about selfishness... and you are not. Despite everything.”

Klaus can’t help but smile.

“Thank you man, that makes me wanna cry.”

“Please, don’t.” he denies. They start having breakfast in silence first. They perfectly know what’s coming. “Okay, so...” He sighs. “Meritech is destroyed.”

Vanya trembles. Diego taps her shoulder in comfort.

“Do we have another chance?” Luther asks. “I mean, maybe trying to avoid another event...-”

“I don’t think so.” Five says. “With Meritech, the Commission has already sent its heavy weights, what if... Erin sends more with others?” He shakes his head. “We have to move on to the next. Keeping Harold Jenkins alive.”

Vanya gulps and goes to the bedroom. Allison glances at Five but doesn’t follow her; sometimes, some alone time is needed.

“Do we really have to keep that bastard alive?” Diego frowns. “I mean, look what he wanted to do to us, look what he did to Vanya.”

“Do you have another plan? Another possible event?” Five sees as Diego shakes his head. “Okay. We have to keep him alive so that the copy of Vanya doesn’t go to the Academy, so that Luther can’t lock her up. What triggers Vanya to go to the Academy is Harold’s death. If he’s alive, she’s not locked up in the vault.”

“That makes sense.” admits Klaus, cracking his neck. “That’s the problem, nothing makes sense, except shitty events we have to avoid.” Seconds later, Hazel with his bag and the briefcase appears right in front of the door. Klaus gets scared and makes a crate explode and the two doors of the hideout slam shut. The others are surprised. Klaus has already explained to them that he always gets jumpy when he’s sober for some weeks despiste all of their missions together. Him being jumpy must be triggering his telekinesis. He still hasn’t got used to that idea. Another power? “Jesus Love Christ!”

Hazel recovers his breath thanks to a glass of water Ben hands him over.

“Thank you.” he mutters, drinking and leaving his bag and the briefcase on the floor. He takes a deep breath after leaving the glass on the table. “Wow, the veterans from the bar get aggressive when you mess with their stuff.”

“You messed with _what_!?” Five screams before Klaus can ask him about it. “A-And your jacket has blood, what-?”

“Don’t worry! I shot one of them on the hand. He’ll live.” Hazel answers while Five is freaking out on the inside. Then, he takes something wrapped in a medium-sized napkin out of his bag and turns to Klaus, who’s lifting an eyebrow. What’s going on? “I haven’t told you how much I’m sorry for everything I did to you.”

Klaus chuckles.

“Look what you’ve done for us even if we don’t trust you fully-”

“Listen.” he insists. Klaus hates being interrupted, but he keeps quiet. “I’m sorry. But, in the bar of the vets, the picture is in its place, as you told me, and it’s exactly as you described, beige-ish, the same number of soldiers, the Sun...”

“Uhm, what did you mess up with?”

Hazel hands him over the wrapped object. Klaus still hesitates.

“I’ve taken longer than I thought I would ‘cause I went to a photography store. Of course, I also had to run from that place because the owner saw I had blood after I got out of there.”

Klaus frowns and takes the object. He unwraps it and everyone sees how he freezes when he looks at the small frame, the size of his two palms. He has his eyes wide open for a while. Then, just like that, he hugs Hazel, who frowns but doesn’t push the other man away. Hazel is not used to hugs, but he manages to tap Klaus’ back and mutter _there, there_. After a while, Klaus gets closer to the table and puts the frame on it. Allison knows.

“He’s Dave, isn’t he?”

The picture is the same as the one from the bar, but amplified, just showing Klaus and Dave.

“Yeah.” Klaus stutters, gulping. He’s trying so hard not to cry. “He is.”

Ben looks at the photo too and smiles.

“So, that’s him, right?”

“That’s right.” Klaus whispers, drying his tears before they even get out of his eyes.

Luther, without saying anything, stands up, goes to Klaus and hugs him. This time, Klaus can’t help but cry silently. Luther is not the best at hugging, not even now as an adult, but it’s enough to break him down, especially when Allison joins the hug too. It’s clumsy and corny, but it’s needed.

They split and Five doesn’t know what to say.

_Anytime you go to the past and change something, you create another parallel universe._

Does that mean that he _deleted_ another parallel universe after arriving from 1955? What happened in that one? He hopes it didn’t happen something too important.

After Klaus’ sobs stop, they all sit around the table again. And this time, instead of spacing out from the conversation, Klaus has the picture right in front of them on the table while he strokes the anklet; and he listens _carefully_.

“Meritech is destroyed, but we have another chance with saving Harold.” Hazel says. “If we do that...?”

“There’s the possibility that by doing that, Vanya’s copy doesn’t see him dead, so she doesn’t want to go to the Academy.” Five states.

Vanya hesitates and the others notice.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I guess, after what I did to Allison, that’s the thing that made me want to go back. Harold’s death was just the spark.”

“What if we do both?” Ben suggests. “Trying to defend Allison’s copy and saving Harold? In case saving Harold doesn’t work?”

They reflect on it.

“We’ll leave it as a second choice.” Luther states. “If we fail keeping Allison’s copy totally unharmed, we’ll have to save Harold for Vanya not to go back to the Academy. But that thing is 50% sure.” He looks at Five. “What do we do now?”

Five rubs his hands and sighs.

“Keeping the search about... dad and Erin.” he answers. He’s having a hard time saying her real name and deciding whether to say _dad_ , _bastard_ or _Reginald_ , but he has always had problems with this last thing. He wonders if that’s ever going to change. “But, ‘cause we’re being pursued, we have to do that safer and carefully... even more.”

“How do we do that?” Diego asks. “I mean, besides computers and the old headquarters, we have nothing else. The first library we visited almost froze us.”

“The Commission pulled on you an Elsa from _Frozen_?” Klaus asks with sarcasm.

“We felt like we were around forty degrees.” Allison comments and Luther walks towards the board. He writes _heavy weights_ followed by two points and, behind the two dots, he writes _Earthquake-maker_ and _Snow_ _-maker_ followed by a snowflake.

“You’re forgetting the orange light we saw with Five.” Vanya says and Luther writes _strange orange light in the sky_. Although the light thing looks a little off their situation, it sure has something to do with them. “So, how do we figure out how to stop the Commission?”

“I only know two more places with abandoned headquarters in the entire city but nothing else.” Hazel says. “But... I wouldn’t do that anymore, they must know by now that we’re searching around those places. They obviously remember the places they’ve worked in previously.”

“What do we do, then?”

Allison’s question makes Diego remember a dismissed idea they had when they visited the headquarters for the first time on their first day. Hazel had told them that the Handler could freeze time among other things and that they could possibly use it against her somehow. Ben jumped in because it was total madness doing that. But, with an event that has happened the way it happened the first time around, they don’t have much options. And they’re slowly running out of time.

“What...?” Diego mutters. “What about talking to the Handler?”

Five frowns in disbelief and Klaus laughs. The others can’t believe it either.

“Very, funny...”

“You must be kidding.” Five says, really serious, and Diego shrugs. “You’re not? It’s madness, Diego! What do you think could happen? Just talk? If we got to speak to hear, she’ll sure as hell have back-up. The heavy weights, they could kill us. We would be eight against who knows how many more.”

“I don’t know, but think about it.” Diego insists after rubbing his eyes. “We’re being dubious about the second event and we couldn’t prevent the first one. I can’t even begin to imagine what could happen with the Moon thing. So, we don’t have many options.”

Five keeps quiet while the others keep talking, until it’s around midday and he snaps.

“Have you all thought about _any_ other way we could do apart from talking to our horrible aunt?” The others shake their heads. Five grinds his teeth, goes to the bathroom, takes a piss, goes to the kitchen, drinks a water, returns to the living room and puts a hand on the table. “Fine!”

“Really?”

“Yes.” he hisses and passes a hand through his hair. He wonders if his tick of tapping the floor is going to disappear anytime soon. “We have no other choice. But, do you all understand doing that could put us in extreme danger, even more?”

“We know, but we have nothing else to do.” Allison speaks.

“Yeah.” her brother agrees, still tapping the floor. “However, we could do something else when we talk to her. To have a win with us.”

“And what is that?” Luther asks.

“Trade.” Five says. “Blackmailing.”

“With what?” Diego asks, frowning. “She has everything. We have nothing.”

“If... If she doesn’t come with any back-up, we promise her not to attack her and let her go.”

“I think she could perfectly run away even if we tried to attack her.” Klaus comments. “Besides, even if we promise not to attack her, she’s gonna have back-up anyway, just in case.”

“We could try to convince her not to attack us if we don’t attack her. Even if she has support.” Luther suggests. “This is confusing. But how do we contact her?”

Hazel sighs and closes his eyes with defeat.

“I actually remember her number.” he hisses. “We just need another disposable phone. And search more about parallel universes, because Regi-Regi and the Hand-Hand are from a parallel universe, remember?”

“We could try returning to a library.” Five says. “But we’ll probably be kicked out by the heavy weight again. We’ll have to do it fast.”

“What if we go all together?” Vanya suggests. “We would be... eight instead just three or four.”

Vanya even thinks they can’t split ever again in what’s left until the apocalypse. Everyone else knows that too.

“Good idea.” Luther claims. “So that they feel they have less options. Also, going at a peak time where there are more people is a good idea too.”

“At the library down the street, its peak time is at half past one, I’ve seen a lot of people at that hour.” Allison reports. “We go together.”

****~~~** **

They talk a little bit more, mostly Hazel writing the number of the Handler on a corner of the blackboard, until it’s half past one, when they leave their ultra-locked hideout to the library. There are fewer computers but more shelves and more people at this hour. Luther tries to search on the computer, but he has no patience with technology. Diego makes fun of him for not being able to search in a computer but having been on the Moon with all of that astronaut equipment, but Hazel decides to sit on the chair and search.

“Okay... According to this typical science website, parallel universes are born when you change something from the past.” Hazel says. “Nothing new. We all know this, _starman_.”

“I think looking for science pages is too...” Diego thinks about the right words. “... too _correct_. I think we should search in science-fiction pages too.”

With Five grinding his teeth for his suggestion, Hazel does search for some of them. Luther tries to comfort Five but fails.

“There says that when you go back to the past and you return to the present just after some hours, that in the present the events are like _rewinded_.” Ben reads.

“Rewinded?” Luther asks. “Like if that day wasn’t?”

 _Fuck,_ Five thinks. Why is everything indicating that he rewinded time when he returned from 1955 to 2019? It doesn’t make sense. It wouldn’t be rewinded, that day just wouldn’t exist... right?

That feeling is unnerving. What if something important did happen? What if they realized something and that moment didn’t happen because of him?

He has to know.

“We’re losing time.” Five interrupts after a while. “We need to call to meet with the Handler.”

“Woah!” Klaus mutters. “Like, right now?”

“I’ll just call her.” Five insists.

“Well, if she’s kind enough, try to make her meet us around afternoon, 6 pm or so.” Luther tells him. “Her number is on the board. Tell us if anything happens.”

Five is bothered. He knew by heart the Handler’s number, but that was one of the things he forgot after space and time traveling too many times in his life.

“Yeah, I will.”

Five pretends to go to the restrooms and teleports back to the hideout. He memorizes the number and goes to a market for a disposable phone. However, when he calls no one answers. Of course. How could he and Hazel forget? Just people with the Commission’s tech could call her.

He has an idea.

He walks on the sidewalk for a few minutes. Thanks to Klaus’ narrations, he finds the right motel. He has to be discreet, so he doesn’t threaten the reception to tell him where the room of the copy of Hazel and his partner is. He ends up finding it himself. He gets inside and, just because Hazel is a hopeless forgetful dude, his Commission phone (or at least one of them) is in the night stand. He dials the number on the phone with gloves on (just in case) and calls. It takes some seconds.

_“Hello? Hazel, I told you that you already know what you needed to know for your mission.”_

It’s her. It’s fucking her. Five freezes.

“Uh...” he coughs and shivers out of nervousness. He doesn’t know what to say at the beginning. “I’m not Hazel.” he states. She stays in silence. It looks like she’s tapping a notebook with the tip of her fingers, like if she were in her office. “You already know who I am, don’t you?”

She hisses.

 _“Yeah. I do.”_ she answers slowly. They don’t talk for a while. He hates being in this situation. _“Five. What do I owe this pleasure to? It’s been a while. We’re looking for you, dear.”_

Right. She must be thinking it’s his copy. Does he have to tell they’re the originals or the copies? What is more dangerous for them? For the world?

“We need to talk. In person.”

She chuckles.

_“Are you sure you want that?”_

“I don’t want that.” he admits. He scratches his ear. “But I need it.”

_“What do you want to talk about?”_

“I need to know some things. To stop the apocalypse.”

 _“Huh...”_ she mutters and stops tapping her notebook for snapping her fingers. _“Despite all of the times I told you the apocalypse always happens, no matter what?”_

_Does she know about the events we’ve prevented? Does she know we’re the originals?_

“Yeah. Trying is not a sin, you know?”

 _“That’s right.”_ she agrees. _“Okay. I want a_ very _small amount of questions you can ask me.”_

“Deal. I want you not to bring back-up.”

_“Five... You know I’m gonna bring some back-up, at least. It’d be fool of me.”_

They knew that.

“I know. Even if you bring it, don’t attack unless we attack first.”

_“We?”_

_Shit. How can I be so dumb? God!_

“Yeah. We. Bring support, but we promise not to attack you if you don’t attack us.”

_“Deal. When and how do you want us to meet?”_

“What about 6 pm in the east highway of the city?”

 _“Oof, I have something to do at 18:02.”_ she says, pretending pity. _“In that exact place. Someone’s gonna call me.”_

 _I know_. That means that she’s going to meet with them by freezing time and, a couple of minutes later, she’s going to be called by Hazel’s copy.

“Yeah? You know what’s gonna happen?”

She laughs.

_“You know... It wasn’t nice when Hazel killed me.”_

_What?_

No. No, it can’t be possible.

“Uh...” Five has to sit on the bed for his head to stop spinning around. “What? You’re alive-”

_“My other past self died. I’m alive in this parallel universe, you know? I thought you’d know by now. I know some things that happened in the original timeline because the conscience of that Handler was transferred to mine. Freezing time is not the only thing I know to do.”_

“I guessed so.” he hisses. This complicates things even more. “You know everything that’s gonna happen?”

_“Do you even remember what_ _our purpose is? This is not because we feel superior to humanity. In fact, we have humanity’s back, we save it from things much worse, even much worse than a small apocalypse.”_

_Anytime she gives a speech about the Commission’s purpose, it means that she wants to divert_ _from the topic._ Meaning that, she doesn’t know _everything_ that’s going to happen. She knows she’s in danger, that’s why she has her heavy weights. She’s scared of something. Of what? They don’t have any back-up at all.

“Don’t you dare talk to me about the greater good.”

 _“Oh, and you all do?”_ she states. _“You do, Five? Look at what you’ve caused, not just when you returned from 1955.”_

_Crap._

“Uh...” he gulps. He has not much time left until the copy of Hazel and Cha-Cha get back from killing the poor maid. “What...?” He cleans the sweat off his face. “W-What did I do?”

She enjoys the suspense, that motherfucker.

 _“Well, the most important thing is that you rewinded when your robo-mom was about to tell Diego the truth about Vanya.”_ she says calmly. No way... Not like this. _“Oh, and this is emotional. You made Luther and Allison not doing the dance they could never do.”_ She seems to hesitate somehow, like affected for a second. _“Ah, tears.”_

Shit.

 _“Yeah.”_ she says _. “Besides, your brother Klaus got to conjure his dead boyfriend, but guess who rewinded that beautiful moment? Oh, you.”_

This can’t be true. This isn’t happening. No, no, no.

“Tell me that’s not true...” he mutters. She keeps silent, which means it’s true. No, no, no way. Not right now, when they’re trying to save the world together. Five takes a deep breath. Even if he’s sitting, his mind starts spinning around again. “Okay... Let’s meet at 6 pm in that hallway. We’ll be there.”

_“As will I.”_

She hangs and that’s when he realizes his hands are shaking. He leaves the phone in its place and teleports back to the hideout. The others are already there, which means he has taken longer than expected. Someone touches his shoulder.

“Hey.” Luther says. “You’re shivering, what happened with Erin?”

He sighs. Allison, Diego and Klaus are looking at him too while eating cookies. He ruined all of their happiness.

“You okay, man?” Klaus asks softly and Five looks briefly at the photo of Vietnam on the table.

_He got to conjure Dave._

Five strokes the hem of his dark jacket and gulps once more. There isn’t a fucking moment for telling something like that. There’s no moment for something similar, especially right now when the apocalypse is in a couple of days, but when it’s really the right time?

Five strokes his forehead and promises to death that he’s going to do all of this right. The world is going to be okay, so that their siblings know the truth about when he returned from 1955, where they can be more calm and talk among each other better. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.

“Nothing, just...” he stutters and strokes his face. It’s been a long day and they still have to do so much more. “Well, as usual, that woman gets me on my nerves.” He stands more relaxed, but he’s still tense. “She agreed to meet us on the highway from the original timeline, at the hour we wanted, but she’s gonna have support. I convinced her not to attack us if we didn’t do that, though.”

“Okay.” Hazel says on the sofa. “We’ll need to dress with discretion.”

“More discretion?” Diego complains, tightening his eyelids.

“Yeah.” Luther states. “Some of our copies will be around there waiting for the Handler too, remember?”

“We’ll have not to carry our bags in case she thinks we have weapons.” Allison suggests. “It’s in three and a half hours, so let’s rest a little bit.”

Five leaves his bag on a crate and cracks his neck while the others split. Then, he feels someone touching his shoulder. It’s Klaus, and Five can’t help but frowning with sadness. Not right there...

“You’re still on edge.” Klaus notices, tilting his head. Of course _he_ notices when someone’s on edge after all of his addiction with meth or cocaine. His brother being understanding makes guilt bigger. “You okay? Anything else happened with her?” Five thinks. This is not a conversation to have in the middle of their fight. Not right now when Klaus could break down. They can talk properly after all of this. “Did she tell you anything important to us?”

Five shakes his head.

“No.” he gulps, looking _straight_ to Klaus’ eyes. “No. She didn’t tell me anything too serious. Nothing at all.”

Klaus, without knowing anything, just shrugs and lies on the sofa.

Five grinds his lips and goes to the bathroom to wash his face.

On the other side, the group keeps talking about the possible outcomes with their future close talk with their aunt. They have to keep quiet when one of them is talking. It’s probably better if just Hazel or Five (or even Luther) speak, unless all of them give another person a quick glance of approval for speaking. Nevertheless, they still have a limited number of questions because she obviously doesn’t want them to know too much.

“What do you want to say with that?” Ben asks Five.

“That when I asked her if she knew everything that’s gonna happen or not, she talked about the Commission’s purpose.”

“That’s what she does when she diverts the topic.” Hazel reminds them.

“She...?” Allison asks, confused, still not getting it. “But, she knows we’re from the original timeline? That there are two Hargreeves families in this world?”

“Exactly.” Five says, tapping the blackboard. “She’s using those heavy weights, perhaps from the original timeline too, in order to stop us and make the apocalypse happen. Maybe with those same aces up the sleeve, she manages to kill my copy, so that they can’t go back in time to 1952 all over again.”

“So that the apocalypse happens again.” Diego concludes.

“Correct.”

It’s already 5 pm and they’ve been trying to talk about their plans and future steps but without freaking out too much. Diego and Allison ask if Vanya’s handling it okay once and over again and without annoying her. Five tells his siblings not to listen to anything the Handler says in order to manipulate them or something similar. Not listening to her if things twist.

Crap. If it weren’t for him, Luther, Allison and Klaus (and Dave) would be the happiest people on Earth. He doesn’t blame himself, he had no choice. He had to run away from that place. What could he do?

“Okay.” Hazel mutters at quarter to six. “Ready to go?” The others check out if there’s something useful they can keep in their pockets, but they can just use their talkies and their sunglasses. “Remember, fellas. Do not panic when seeing her. She enjoys fear; not your fear exactly, fear of someone being uncertain about her actions. Just stand next to me and Five, even a little bit behind, just in case. I’ll have the briefcase behind me, but she’ll see it.”

“We don’t have to get away from each other.” Five states. “Even if she ends up attacking us.” They all take each others’ hands, except Luther, who has one free because he takes Haz’s hand given that he has the briefcase. “Fine.” Some of them sigh. A couple of them shiver and the others close their eyes. “Let’s go.”

**_**[“May It Be”, Enya]** _ **

_May it be an evening star_

_Shines down upon you_

_May it be when darkness falls_

_Your heart will be true_

_You walk a lonely **road**_

_Oh, how far you are from home_

****~~~** **

They land on a not too greenish praire next to a highway which is not so travelled by cars. That’s something good even if Erin freezes time. Five checks out his siblings, already used to the travels with himself or the briefcase.

“You all okay?”

His siblings nod, except Vanya, who’s always the one to take some seconds longer to recover. They stay next to the only thing they see around there, between a big tumbleweed and the two-lanes road. Luther and Five’s copies must be already going here in order to negotiate with the fake briefcase. This has to be fast.

The tumbleweed next to them starts to roll thanks to a sweet breeze of wind close to them and, then, stops in the middle of the air. They’re uneasy about it.

“Wait, guys.” Hazel whispers. He looks all around them. “I think this is it.”

They look all around themselves and see nothing.

“Yeah. This is it.”

They look where the female voice is coming from and see her. The Handler, some of them even seeing her for the first time face to face, is standing twenty yards away, calm, a hand on her waist, dark coat, curly short hair and quiet but attentive at the same time. They don’t know how to describe her eyes; like a fun mood and distrustful all at once. Weird. The group keeps attentive too, grounded and careful. Good thing that just Five and Hazel are going to talk because they wouldn’t know what to say.

“Let’s make this fast, okay?” Hazel states out loud with determination. “We don’t want any troubles.”

“Yeah, you’re saying that.” she tells him, frowning, not moving from her place but touching the soft pink bracelet from her right hand. “That way of dying wasn’t nice. Like, really?”

“How did you manage to _come back_?” Luther dares to ask, sure and not moving a muscle.

“Huh, first question. You have ten questions, by the way.” she says moving back and forth with her feet. “Well... I don’t just freeze time, you know? I do other things too.” She slightly moves her hands and the others startle. “Like, teleporting, science techniques... typical, typical.” She pauses while moving from side to side on the road. “I do more things, so when Hazel killed me, my consciousness travelled to _me_ , to the body from this parallel universe, when you landed in... 1952, was?”

“We didn’t know that transferable consciousness was possible.” Luther comments, reflecting on it.

“It _is_ possible!” she says with fake enthusiasm. “That’s what I did. Five didn’t tell you?”

They all resist the urge to look at Five, so that they can focus on her. Five frowns. _Fuck. I should’ve at least told them that_ , but he totally forgot about it. Allison sighs, shivering. Klaus stays strong, but he’s astonished when Erin looks at him in particular.

“We want to know where your heavy weights are from.” Five asks.

“Second question.” she counts, snapping her fingers. “I didn’t actually have the idea of using some of the forty three children against The Umbrella Academy itself, it was Luke’s idea.”

 _Oh, Luke, that ass-kissing..._ Hazel thinks.

“Then, what?” Five says.

“He gave me that idea before the apocalypse, so, they’re from the original timeline.” she answers. That means that are copies from those heavy weights in this parallel universe as well, right? “I also transferred their minds into this world.” Oh, she transferred their minds too, so the copies from their bodies have their minds. That shit’s confusing. “I made them be safe under my wing, convincing them that all of this mess is your fault, the apocalypse, for not being able to cope with someone like Vanya.”

Vanya shakes her head with the mention.

“It wasn’t our fault being raised this way.” Luther claims. “It was our dad’s.”

Erin smiles, hitting the nail on the head, nodding. Of course she knows it’s Reginald’s fault. In fact, if Reginald hadn’t betrayed her, The Umbrella Academy wouldn’t exist, the forty three children would live in pace, without worrying about the end of the world. But he did betrayed her, so Reginald, seeing her sister was after him trying to make an apocalypse for a reason they don’t know yet, had to gather all of the children he could.

Seven.

“I know, darlings, I know.” she mutters. “The apocalypse always happens... because Reginald always fucks it up raising his children trying to stop me to make the apocalypse, which is redundant. That’s why the apocalypse always happens; it’s either his fault unintentionally or my fault, intentionally. He invented the Academy after he ran away from our world because he saw I could win.”

“ _Win_ what?” Hazel asks.

“That counts as a third question.” she states. “Well, I’m not saying anything beyond that... if the apocalypse happens, we have the chance to save a great amount of people from an invention.”

“The machine that gave you both powers.” Five nods and she shakes her head as in surprise. Surprise, that’s one of the things she hates the most. “Huh. That machine is made out of nickel. That’s why Todd Parker is selling nickel as much as possible.”

“I have more than two abilities.” she corrects.

“No...” Luther says, then he understands that she misunderstood the _both powers_ sentence. “No. The machine gave two people some powers and one of them is you. We also figured out that one member of your family betrayed you. Our dad is your brother.”

The Handler is rendered speechless for some seconds. Now they can read what’s in her eyes clearly: hatred, sorrow, treason.

Nevertheless, instead of venting all of her emotions, she sighs and stops moving her body at all.

“Yeah. Twins, actually.” The group stays with their mouths wide open. “The surprise factor is not so nice, isn’t it? Ah, all of this time thinking that just because Reginald’s smart doesn’t mean his children are.”

Luther keeps inside his memory the sentence that Reginald _is_ smart. Does she know...?

“If we avoid the apocalypse, what would happen?” Hazel asks.

“Fourth question.” she says, resuming her back and forth movements. “Well... If the end doesn’t happen, I couldn’t avoid the invention of the machine that killed your grandmother in my universe.” Another surprise for them. “Our father invented the machine that accidentally gave us powers and which also killed our mother. I won’t say any connections between the end of the world and the machine. Too many clues for you all.”

“Too many clues?” Five asks, frowning. “We couldn’t avoid the destruction of Meritech Prosthetics! We’re losing!”

“Well...” she tilts her head and puffs. “Those events helped the apocalypse to happen, to have the chance to save my mother. I have to use my heavy weights because you’ve been avoiding or causing things that weren’t supposed to happen. How are you all gonna handle the stop of the destruction of the Moon?” Vanya closes her eyes and tightens her fists. That’s the question she fears the most. “And even if you get to prevent the end of the world, what next?” Vanya changes her mind. That’s _the_ question she fears the most. “Preventing something as big the end of the world would suppose chaos.”

“Why?” Ben snaps.

“Fifth question, five left.” she hisses. “Well, preventing the apocalypse is a big deal. And with two Hargreeves families, from this world and from the original timeline, co-existing in one parallel universe, and especially with so many parallel universes being created once and again, it attracts the attention of... evil entities.”

“Like what?” Hazel asks.

“Like interdimensional monsters.” she claims. “Cosmic entities from multiple dimensions that are raging over something so big as creating more and more and more parallel universes and apocalypses being stopped and those entities acquire a physical shape so that they start attacking the world where the people from the original timeline are. The apocalypse doesn’t just prevent my mother’s death, it also helps their arrival to this world. Regi just wants to prevent it because he’s upset for his betrayal. That’s what you get when you screw around with time. You tell them, Five.”

“What?” he asks, frowning, without knowing what she’s talking about.

“Come on.” she moves her shoulders. “You didn’t tell them? You didn’t tell your own siblings what you did?”

“What did you do?” Klaus asks him calmly, but he freezes when Erin stares at him, then Diego, then Luther and Allison together.

“I...” Five mutters. Then, he walks until he’s facing Klaus, who doesn’t know what’s going on. Klaus is looking at Five and Erin once and again. He doesn’t like where this is going.

“What happened? Tell us.”

“I...”

“Well,” the Handler interrupts. “it started when your dear brother returned from 1955, running away from me.”

“It didn’t happen anything when he returned from the past.” Luther states.

“Oh, _Luther_.” she smiles. “How naive. Just because you don’t remember anything from a destroyed parallel universe doesn’t mean it didn’t happen anything the hours he was missing.”

“What happened?” Klaus insists on her, trying to take some steps forth, but Five puts his hands on his chest. Allison has the urge to take a step forward, but that wouldn’t make things better at all. “Five.”

The shock leaves Five without voice. He feels between a rock and a hard place, pressed, mute. He hasn’t ever felt this way.

“Well, actually!” Erin says. “The big news was that your momma Grace was about to tell Diego the truth about Vanya.” She pretends pity when Diego stares at Five. However, Diego shakes his head and looks back at the Handler and points at her with his index.

“Don’t you dare talk about her!”

“I could talk about Eudora Patch if you want.”

Luther holds Diego in his arms behind his back before he can throw his shuriken at her heart or her neck. They stay in that position. Allison clenches her jaw and realizes that she can’t just rumor the Handler to stop talking because they promised not to attack her. If they use any of their powers, Erin sends her heavy weights.

“Stop it!” Allison exclaims and takes a step forward with a horrified expression. “We’re leaving now...!”

“But you still have left five questions and I have more things left to say,” she taunts. “like, for example, how you both Luther and Allison danced under the lights of the park, something you couldn’t do when you were younger, but Five rewinded that romantic, last moment before she left in the airplane.”

Luther keeps Diego in his place, but he stares at Erin, frowning, then at Five, frowning and with his mouth open. Allison feels a pang in her chest. She’s hanging by a thread, she can’t handle any of this anymore, trying the siblings not to fall apart when she wants to do that too.

“Stop it! We’re leaving now!...”

“And...!” Klaus shivers when the Handler looks at him again while still being held by Five. “Oh. Your story with Dave is tragic too.”

Klaus is about to run towards her too, but Five contains him.

“No...” Klaus tries not listening to her. Hazel tries to press the buttons of the briefcase in order to get the hell out of there, but the buttons are frozen, frozen in time. They hadn’t thought about that. If she freezes time, she freezes space too, meaning that if they had brought any other weapons, they wouldn’t have worked, just like it’s happening to the briefcase. On the other side, Klaus is blinking quickly and his breath is faster. “No...”

“Truth to be told, I didn’t even know who the hell David Katz was, just another mere victim of the Vietnam War, no one important, until I searched what happened when Five ran away from 1955, but I can tell you what happened in that destroyed world, many other things, like a new species of pigeon being discovered, but after Diego helped you tie you up in a chair, alone, you got to conjure your dead boyfriend.”

Five cusses out loud. Klaus shakes his head, feeling his heart breaking, feeling his face without any expression, feeling his legs lose strength, his chest lose breath. He looks at Five, who’s looking up at him with teary eyes and guilt.

“Five.” Klaus mutters. “You... You didn’t know, right?” The Handler chuckles while seeing Hazel uselessly attempting to use the briefcase. No can do. “You didn’t know.” Klaus’ eyes get teary too. Ben gets close fast and tries to hold his brother, but he has made him intangible. Crap! “You didn’t know.” he says this time hissing, with more determination and frowning. “Tell me you didn’t know. Tell me.”

Five looks down to the road and looks back at him. Five shivers when he feels Klaus’ hands taking his shoulders.

“I didn’t...” he confesses, feeling defeated and exhausted as ever. “... until I called the Handler this morning. She told me everything I rewinded the day that wasn’t... like preventing you from seeing Dave again.”

“No.” Klaus mutters with hatred, shaking, sobbing, but not disbelieving, and that last thing is what hurts Five the most, the fact that they all believe only Five could keep something to himself as big as this. Klaus breaks down at the realization. Now that he has another power, it will be even harder to conjure people. Five was even _happy_ of him having another power. “No...” he whispers but, after a while, he snaps. “No! You told me she didn’t tell you anything important! No, you told me and _looked straight_ into my eyes, completely sure, that you didn’t know _anything_ important to us! To me!” Klaus grinds his teeth. “You lied right into my face! You lied to us! You lied to me!”

Just when Klaus pushes Five’s shoulders with strength, Luther drops Diego and runs towards Klaus. Luther takes Klaus behind his back too, but he’s shaking between him, Allison, Ben, Vanya and Diego.

“Oh, wow.” Erin mutters, enjoying the show, and Hazel wants nothing more than shooting her again.

“Klaus! I’m so sorry!” Five says, dodging a stone Klaus takes from the road and throws at him, still trying to get out of Luther’s grip.

“No!” Klaus screams with his wet face. “No! LIAR!!”

An expandable blue-ish wave gets out of Klaus’ body and causes everyone to fall to the tough ground of the road. The others are in shock, but luckily, due to the humongous wave of emotions he must be going through right now, Ben is tangible again and holds his desperate and sorrowful brother in his arms. Five complains from the hit in his back, but he gets to move until he’s lying and resting an elbow on the road.

“Klaus...” Five mutters on the ground of the road too.

“No...” Klaus mutters, stopping his resistance against Ben’s strength and feeling his red eyes burning with tears. When Five looks at his hurt glance, the sight leaves him in shock. “N-No, Five. You lied to us. You lied to me when I needed to know... when I needed it the most... You’re not better than anyone else... You’re not. I can’t trust you anymore...”

Klaus hides his face on Ben’s neck while his brother strokes his back. The others get closer to his shivering, sobbing, crying-out-loud brother. Luther stares at Five before kneeling on the road.

Five lets his head rest on the strong road and looks at the sky. He has been through loss. He has been through decades of loneliness. He has been through becoming a monster, doing everything the Handler ordered because he had no choice. He has been through too many other things and, somehow, he has always moved on and got to come back to 2019 because he didn’t give up.

Right now, he’s feeling defeat and it hasn’t felt worse.

He doesn’t know how much time passes after the disaster of their plan, but then, Luther is tapping his shoulders with a neutral expression on his face.

“We have to go.”

Five tightens his eyelids before taking a deep breath and standing up. He notices the Handler’s still there, twenty yards away, but he doesn’t want to look at her face. She must be waiting for them to get away a little bit to unfreeze time, so that they don’t catch her. Then, they all get closer to Hazel on the floor because Erin has already _unlocked_ the buttons and he has them ready. Five notices Klaus’ face is still hidden in Ben’s neck, still sobbing and feeling weak, and he has to take his look away again. Allison takes Five's hand in support and taps his shoulder. Why? He doesn’t deserve it right now.

They kneel, touch Hazel and teleport to a safer zone, where they see perfectly how the Handler unfreezes time just as a bird passes over their heads in the park. They hide again and teleport back to the hideout. Somehow, this has felt a bigger defeat than the destruction of the Meritech building.

**_**[“I’m So Tired”, The Beatles]** _ **

_I’m so tired, I don’t know what to do_

_I’m so tired, my mind is set on you_

_I wonder should I call you but I know what you would do_

****~~~** **

They land in the middle of the living room, next to the table and close to the kitchen. They stretch themselves.

Five moves then and he turns towards Klaus.

“Klaus... I’m-”

Klaus doesn’t even look at him when he gets away from them and goes to the bathroom. When he closes the door with strength, the windows’ glass shake, as if it’s an effect from his telekinesis.

Just like what happened back in the road.

They let silence settle a little bit, but when they recover from what happened, the bomb bursts.

“Good job, genius.” Diego spits in his face. Five looks straight to his eyes and endures the blame, but that’s rather hard when feeling defeat. “What about talking more and trusting each other? And right after he lets Dave’s death happen?”

“That wasn’t very nice, what about we don’t have to skip our problems for later?” Ben accuses with contained anger.

“I know, I’m sor-”

“You should be ashamed.” Diego points at him with his index, so Luther decides to step between each other. “Oh, what the hell are you doing? Stepping heroically?”

“Yes.” Luther states. “Five made a big mistake. He made a mistake, okay? That doesn’t mean we have to cancel him forever. There is a word called redemption.”

Diego and Ben calm down. Luther turns to Five and leads him to the laundry room, where they can be alone. Five shakes his head. Luther lets him space because his brother clearly has such a weak voice that it wouldn’t let him talk for some minutes.

“I’m sorry... for everything.”

“I know you’re sorry.” he says with a neutral expression. He must be angry with Five’s lie as well, but he’s always the one putting a middle term for all of them to move on. “That’s not enough, trust me. All you can do now is move on and support Klaus even if he doesn’t want you near him.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s what’s happening to me and Vanya.” he confesses. “She doesn’t want me too close, but trust is earned step by step, little by little. You have to be by his side, no matter what.”

Five nods, even if he knows it already. But after this day, this disaster, it has been shown that he didn’t know much about guilt and defeat. Now, he’s feeling both of them and he feels like shit.

“Yeah. I will.”

They try to spend the next hour trying to make Five and Klaus talk about what happened on the deserted highway, but Klaus won’t answer anything behind the bathroom door. Ben decides to take the photo of him and Dave and knock on the door softly.

“Dude. We know you’re there, but I want to come inside alone.” he waits some seconds. Klaus sobs softly. “Can I come in?”

They hear a click on the door and the door is open softly. Ben gets inside and closes it with the lock included. He sees as his brother, at the back of the two squared yard bathroom, is sitting on the floor next to the closed toilet, his head is against the wall from behind and his legs are intertwined while his arms are embracing them. His eyes are not red anymore and he has stopped crying since half an hour ago, but his cheeks are full of dry tears. He blinks several times and sighs when his brother sits in front of him.

“There you have.” he says, handing him over the picture just like Haz did this morning. Klaus takes it and stares at the image. A faint smile appears on his face and it’s fucking sad how he starts to stroke the side where Dave is while caressing the anklet with his left hand. “How are you now?”

Klaus chuckles with sarcasm.

“I’ve been better.” he says with a dry voice, then he hugs the picture closer to him. It’s beautifully heartbreaking how Dave still seems to help him through hard times, even in the afterlife. He shakes his head and frowns softly. “Sorry for raging out there. But I... couldn’t _contain_ myself.”

“I know.” Ben says with a reassuring expression. “You did good in venting it... but why right when we were talking to Erin?”

Klaus shrugs and kisses the picture, right exactly where Dave is.

“I don’t know... I just, Five was right in front of me, trying to contain me _on purpose_ for me not to listen to her and...” he gulps before continuing, but he stops from scratching his hands. “He _lied_ to me, Ben. He lied right into my face, into my eyes, completely sure about what he was telling me. How can he be lying when we’re trying to save the world...?” Ben hands him over a glass of water that was around there. It’s disgusting, but at least it’s just for the thirst. “Besides, we weren’t told by him. We were told by _the Handler_.” he hisses with bitterness. “He has always been this way.”

“Yeah. You’re not wrong, Five fucked up.” Ben comments. “He fucked it up.”

“And, and he lied to Luther and Diego and Allison too.” he reminds him. “Now that we’re in a different universe, maybe we can’t do the things we originally did in the destroyed one...” He closes his eyes just for a second and shakes his head again. “Oof... I’m tired... I’m tired of fighting...”

“I mean...” Ben mutters. “I don’t know what to tell you. You remember how I died? I was alone in a fight that dad sent me to because all of us had already split and it turned out to be more complicated than it should have. And you know what octopuses do when they get stressed? They eat themselves.” They shiver when they remember _exactly_ how he died. If they had been better at mastering their abilities, maybe they would have been together and be able to help him. “I mean, I’m not Diego, I don’t know what to tell you about how to fight until the end and all that jazz.”

“Yeah.” Klaus mutters. “Thank you, Benny.” Ben smiles. “I love you, you know?”

Ben is surprised.

“Oh. I love you too.”

Ben helps his brother stand up.

“I need another shower. To clear my mind and soften my heart chakra.” he says. “I’ll be right back.”

Ben gets out of the bathroom. The others look at him from their chairs.

“What happened?” Vanya asks, worried.

“He’s having another shower.” he answers. He looks at Five, who’s attentive. “He’s really upset, you know? More than angry, he’s upset. I think that’s even harder when you try to win the trust of someone back.”

“I know...” Five hisses. He’s tired, it’s only 7 pm. How the hell are they going to move on if the big event is just around the corner? “Guys, I’m sorry for not telling the truth. But we have to focus on our thing.”

“He’s right.” Allison says before Diego can blame Five again. “So, what now apart from figuring out more about Erin and dad? I mean, she told us a lot, but that leaves us with more questions left to solve as well.”

“We should still do what we agreed to do.” Luther says after some moments of silence. “Trying to keep Allison unharmed, if it doesn’t work, we go to save Harold Jenkins.”

“And how do we save him if we have to?”

They turn around to see Klaus drying his longer hair with a towel and a bathrobe with a lot of colors that don’t fit together, like yellow and bright pink, suitable for him. Ben touches his shoulder in support. Five stares and Klaus pretends not to notice; he goes to the table and leaves the photo of Vietnam on it after kissing it again.

“Well, if we have to save Harold, we should do it as discreet as possible.” Luther says.

“And how do we do that?” Diego says. “We would have to fight against Vanya’s copy because she killed him with her powers. We will have to fight her. Which means we won’t have discretion.”

“Right...” Five thinks, turning to his sister, who tilts her head. “Van, what would make you stop from killing Harold?”

She shakes her head and sighs deeply.

”I don’t know...” she hisses. What a manipulative bastard. Then, she has an idea. “When I was killing him, I was just focusing on him, hurting me the same way he was doing with his insults... I wasn’t thinking about anything else. Then, I went to my home and remembered that I _killed_ Allison.”

“You thought you had killed her or you weren’t sure about it.” Five points out. “And we need discretion and avoid contact with the copies.”

“What if we make Vanya’s copy remember she hurt Allison, somehow?” Hazel suggests. “What about... a pic?”

“Don’t you think it’s a little bit suspicious to have a picture of one of us in his house when Vanya hasn’t seen one ever before?” Diego asks.

“Fine, but I don’t know how to remind her that she hurt Allison.”

Vanya stands up.

“My bow.” she says. “The bow of my violin, I hurt Allison with it.”

“Okay.” Hazel sighs. “I’ll write it down on the groceries list.”

Which means he’s going to steal one from a music store.

“What do we do with the bow?” Ben asks. “Just... leaving it on a visible place where Vanya’s copy can see it?”

“Yeah, something like that.” Hazel writes _violin’s bow_ next to the info about the second event they have to prevent. He also writes on the board _if keeping Ally’s copy safe doesn’t work_. He also puts on a summary of everything that the Handler told them on the road, including the rewinding time thing. Klaus doesn’t even want to look at it. “Okay. So, we keep searching for clues and we find a safe way to _discreetly_ put a bow in Harold’s house, if saving Allison doesn’t work. For this last thing, what do we do?”

“She was hurt in Harold’s cabin outside the city.” Vanya confirms. “He took me there for me not to be around all of you.”

All this time Allison is holding her hand, just because it’s not easy to talk about Harold after everything she’s been through because of him. Vanya was the bullet, but he was the finger who pulled the trigger.

“Do you guys remember where that cabin was?” Hazel asks and they all stay quiet. They know how exactly the house was, but Diego and Allison were the only ones who drove to the place. However, they both shrug. “Shit. Not even the highway...?”

“No.” they both answer.

“Well, maybe the secondary road from the west of the city?” Diego remembers.

“Fine, we’ll search in the map of the phone book.” Hazel opens that book after taking it from a crater and puts in on a table. Everyone helps or stares at the map being unfolded.

Five looks at Klaus, who’s eating a tasteless popsicle but gets away when he notices his brother getting close.

“Klaus!” Five says. Klaus looks at him, frowning, and the others pretend they’re not there, trying to give privacy. “I-I’m sorry for not telling you the truth.”

He thinks about it and looks briefly at the photo on the table.

“I get you.” he mutters mindlessly. Five doesn’t know what to do with that answer. “I get you, man. But you can’t earn my trust again just like that. You know that.”

Five nods.

“Okay.” he whispers and strokes his neck. “I just, I have one thing to tell you.”

“Again?” Klaus says, frowning and with sarcasm.

“Yeah. I realized about it when the Handler told me the truth.” he responds. “Did you not think about it? You conjured Dave in that dead world. It’s possible. You _can_ do it.”

Klaus pauses his movements, just like the time when Erin froze everything. Then, he shakes his head.

“I... No, I...” He gulps. “What if something happens when we stop the apocalypse and that makes me unable to conjure someone?” he stutters. “And it turns out that I have _another_ power that could overshadow my concentration. What if we lose one of us? What if loss is too heavy?”

Five shrugs.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s gonna happen.” he confesses. “The only thing we have left is to move on and try our best. We do need you. But what do you think could happen to prevent you from conjuring someone in the future?”

Klaus sighs.

“I don’t know, I’m eating my head away.” he hisses. “I... I still don’t want you too close to me, man. I can’t easily-”

“I know, Klaus. I know.”

They keep talking for hours. By then, the copies must be already back in the Academy without Five, Vanya must be telling Harold how well she played without her medication and Klaus is trying to recover from what happened in 1968. In the meantime, the originals, around 10 pm, lie on the beds on their closest thing to pajamas, except Five, who gets close to Hazel in the kitchen.

“Tell the others I’m taking a quick walk.” he says before teleporting in the streets.

He walks alone for a couple of minutes. The first days he has felt like they’ve been under a lot of pressure, but now it feels more exhausting than ever. He sighs into the dark night and into the wind, near a street light but not too visible just in case someone sees him. Hell, maybe someone has already spotted him, so he must get back to the hideout.

A sound of a small blast echoes down the street. He frowns. He teleports close to the sound and hides in a corner.

There’s a smaller, relatively newer building next to him on the same sidewalk. Speaking to a young girl around two years older than him (than his body) under a shadow, there’s a man around his fifties dressed in blue dark, strange clothes and a blindfold covering his eyes. He’s not too tall and his face is squared, accompanied by a rather gray hair.

Wasn’t that exactly the guy Klaus described when he went to smoke a cigarette?

Suddenly, the guy gets inside the dark brown building and the girl is more visible now. Between seventeen and years old, a serious look hidden by a lilac blindfold too, medium brown hair in a ponytail, lilac clothes moved slightly by a soft breeze of wind around her and fair skin under the streetlight. The girl looks around carefully and gets inside.

Five doesn’t wait more. He’s about to teleport back to the hideout when someone grabs his shoulders and smashes him against the wall of the end of the alley. He gets up from the ground and sees under the faint shine of the streetlight the same guy they saw yesterday after Meritech Prosthetics was destroyed, with Hazel and Cha-Cha.

One of the forty three children the Handler managed to convince to fight against them.

Five is about to teleport away, but the guy lifts his hands towards him and makes the ground lift him in the air. When he’s about to counter-attack, Five gets to teleport right next to him and hits him with a brick he found on the floor, but he has reacted and moved in time. The man gets to hold him by his neck, but they stay like that; the dude holding him by his neck. The new dude looks angrier and more determined now that they’re so close.

“You work for the Handler, right?” Five hisses, trying to stay well with the hand around his neck. He receives a deep glance by his blue eyes.

“So did you.” he spits. If only Five could see him better, but the darkness... “But that caused the apocalypse in the original timeline. If you hadn’t been so arrogant when you used your time travel for the first time, your siblings would have had you with them. It’s all your fault.”

 _I know_.

“It’s not my fault.” he answers with the same hatred. Still, it’s hard to talk with a hand around his throat. “It was our father’s, for raising us this way.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” he frowns. “I do. That’s why it’s much better in the Handler’s wing. Everything comes from Reginald Hargreeve’s mistakes as a father... and as a brother.”

“Burn in hell.”

Five teleports some yards away, on the road, but he falls again when the earth just quakes for him and tightens his body, like the deadliest hug in the world. Then, another person, a young woman in her thirties, gets close to the new guy, running, and touches his back. Five watches as she gets close and kneels down next to his gasping body wrapped by earth. She’s not helping him and it doesn’t look like those are her intentions, so it must be a foe instead of a friend.

“You’re different from how the Handler told us.” says the Afro-American girl with disdain. She moves her arm backwards... and her hand transforms into a metal knife. “See _you_ in hell.”

When she’s about to cut his throat, Five puts his arms over his own neck and the knife only penetrates his right hand. It hurts like hell, but Five gets to grab the woman by her shoulders and teleport both of them to the closest park, where he quickly throws her against a broken swing and hits her head with it.

He doesn’t have time even for asking himself if she’s dead, probably not. He teleports back to the hideout before they can follow him. _They_. How many has Erin been able to get?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the other forty three children are just around the corner...  
> [ "young girl with lilac clothes": Bella Samman ]


	7. 2x06: "I'll Be There for You"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Commission has its heavy weights ready and steady, but what about the Originals? Do they have any support?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sixth episode | Song: "I'll Be There for You", by The Rembrandts

_I’ll be there for you_

_(When the_ **_**rain** _ ** _starts to pour)_

_I’ll be there for you_

_(Like I’ve been there before)_

_I’ll be there for you_

_(‘Cause you’re there for me too)_

**~~~**

When they landed from 2005 to the present, they didn’t expect so many problems around the corner. Well, they did expect them but agreed to stay together no matter what, but what they didn’t see coming was the fact that the Handler was going to use _others_ of the forty three gifted children around the world... and in plural.

The guy with a brown beard that can make earthquakes and manipulate land, they call him _Earthbender_. The girl that was about to kill Five just a few minutes ago that can transform her hands into weapons, they call her _Metalbender_. Then, there’s the ice that appeared in the library out of nowhere; they want to call the person _Elsa_ but they stay with _Icebender_. There are more and there will probably be more on the next few days.

“What about the weird guy in navy clothes Klaus saw for the first time?” Vanya asks from the sofa with Diego, while the others are trying to rack their brains. It has been a while since Five arrived and told them about what happened to him. “If the Earthbender was the one who caused the earthquake of Meritech, who’s the man with the blindfold on his eyes?”

“No idea.” Klaus answers while biting his nails, so he has to put his hands on the table. He doesn’t want to have another bad habit apart from smoking.

“I saw him again on the street before I was attacked.” Five comments. He was in shock when he arrived and explained everything, but Hazel wrapped him with a blanket and gave him tea, so he feels a little bit better. “But he didn’t participate in the attack. He got inside a brown building, but it’s dark. I don’t know which one is.” They all reflect on it. Then, like Five has learnt on this day that to tell the truth even if they don’t like it, he does. “There was someone with him.”

“Really? More people?” Diego complains while playing with a page of his notebook.

“Yeah.” Five says. “It was... It’s a girl around seventeen or sixteen, brown hair in a ponytail, blindfold too, her clothes were similar to the man’s, but more purplish, more like lilac. She got inside the building too and her glance was serious, like if she were concentrating on what she was doing.”

“How do you know that if her eyes are covered?” Hazel questions.

“Her eyebrows are still visible, just like with the other man.” he answers. “The question is if they’re trying to attack us or not.”

“Friends or foes.” Klaus chuckles. “None of them could be two of the forty three children, he’s like fifty and, according to Five, she’s sixteen.”

“Yeah.” Luther mutters, close to the table and Allison and looking at the board. “I mean... What if they’re something totally different from the forty three children and they just wanna help us?”

“How could we possibly know that?” Five questions. He feels good now. “I’m not meeting with another potential danger.”

“We’ll have to, sooner or later.” Allison states. “We have to move on. I think we should try to talk to the man and the girl.”

“That’s madness.” Five mutters.

“I agree with the little one.” Haz agrees and the little one has to hiss in silence because he doesn’t want to cause more mess in the day, not again. “Too fucked up. Even more.”

“What about our lives is not madness?” Klaus snaps. “Let’s meet those guys... and if they’re dangerous, we run away.”

“They probably know the neighborhood we’re in, they could track us down easily if they end up being foes.” Ben comments. “I don’t think we should see them.”

“Well...” Diego takes longer answering. “I mean... There’s an entire group of time-travelling assassins after us and, with Erin’s heavy weights under her control. I think, I think we should at least keep an eye on where they are.”

“But we have only seen that guy... randomly.” Five realizes. He’s so tired right now. “How can we...?” Five realizes another thing. He stays open-mouthed for some seconds. “Wait... They always appear, leave and, then, the heavy weights attack us.”

“You’re not suggesting putting us in danger on purpose for us to meet them, are you?” Hazel asks, frowning.

“No, no way.” the other answers. “What if we go to train and we do it with a lot of noise and like a show?” The others frown at him too. “Okay, fine, that was madness. Sorry. I’m sleepy.”

“We could do it sometime.” Hazel agrees, well, kind of. “It’s madness. But look at the Commission, they’re out of their minds too. We should keep an eye on the gray hair guy and the girl if we see them again but not intentionally.”

“Okay.” Luther nods. “Now. What about keeping Allison’s copy safe?”

They keep silence.

“What we said earlier.” Haz breaks the ice. “Looking for the place in the map.”

They take as many maps of the city and its surroundings as possible. They talk until midnight when they have three possibilities to search in: two together near a mountain and one of them near a river. Vanya remembers that there was a lake, so it could be any of the three options.

Before Klaus says anything, Five voluntarily goes to sleep to Allison’s and Vanya’s bed and the others remain the same. Just when Klaus is lying on the bed with an old purple shirt and his underwear (not like the red decorations for the clothes of their first days), Diego lies next to him while Ben is watching from the doorless door frame.

“How are you feeling, man?” Diego asks, putting a random black shirt and gray pants he found on the small closet. His brother shrugs and looks at the ceiling. He caresses the anklet with his right foot while the picture is on the nightstand of his side of the bed; the right one.

“I’m not sleepy at all.” he answers with honesty. “I couldn’t sleep last nigh night either, with not preventing the thing from 1968 and all.” He sighs and closes his eyes. It’s been a long day. “I’m tired but not sleepy.”

As Ben keeps silent in all the conversation, Diego responds.

“Was there something Dave did to help you sleep?”

Klaus doesn’t answer for a while.

“I...”

Diego thinks about something to encourage his brother and looks at the ceiling too.

“I always sleep like a rock. But the few nights I couldn’t sleep...” he gulps. How could he be so foolish of not appreciating what he had when he had it? It makes him so, so uneasy. There’s no turning back. Klaus _can_ and has the possibility of seeing his love again. Diego can’t do that. He’s never going to see her again. “... Patch used to lie next to me and stroke my nose with her pinkie.” He smiles with sadness, sighing. Good ol’ times. “She didn’t speak, neither did I. She just did that and I fell asleep like a baby.”

“I know it’s none of my business, but why did you break up?”

Diego keeps silent. He knows the reason (reasons), but he’s trying to put it into words that make sense.

“Well, I didn’t know how to fully appreciate her.” he confesses with tight a throat. “I also believed that my way of making justice was the only and best way to make justice.”

“Crap.” Klaus says around an uncomfortable chuckle. “How did you react?”

“I called her selfish because he cared more about her job than me. But I was doing that exact same thing. The difference is that she knew how to appreciate me. I didn’t.”

Klaus is surprised by how his brother’s voice seems so calm and defeated at the same time.

“Good lord.” he mutters.

“Yeah, I know.” he hisses and covers himself better with the thick blankets. “I... She was greater than I thought and I couldn’t see it.”

Klaus smiles. He finds courage to speak again.

“Once, in Vietnam, our squad was patrolling an abandoned zone where the enemy had previously been and we had to stay in motels for a couple of days. One night, Dave sneaked out to my bedroom and we had...” He whistles with amusement and Diego pretends to cringe, although he’s chuckling, just like Ben. “... wow, we had a blast, guys. I even got to convince him to choke me a little bi-”

“Go on, please.”

“Fine!” Klaus says around a laugh. “Well, that night, after falling asleep, I dreamed of a ghost... taking my guts off of me, literally, like, my guts where everywhere and blood too, I-I didn’t know if the screams were from that old-woman’s voice or mine.” He has to take a stuttering, deep breath before continuing. He doesn’t scratch his hands this time. “The thing is that I woke up with a gasp and saw Dave, naked under the sheets and sleeping peacefully. I didn’t want to bother him with my traumas _once more_ , so I carefully went to the bathroom and washed my face, but nothing would take the gore image out of my mind. I sat on the floor with my back against the wall of the bath, I didn’t even know when I started crying. After a while, I heard the door being open and, then, Dave was running to my position on the floor, asking me, utterly worried, what happened.” He sighs. He’d kill for a cigarette right now. “Dave even got a little bit mad at me for not waking him up. He told me to wake him up as many times as I needed.” Klaus’ eyes get teary, but nothing comes off of them because of his position in their bed. “God... I miss him so much.”

Diego wants to say _I miss Patch too_. But he knows his brother needs this silence.

Diego will fight until the end for his family and for himself. He’s going to make this right for all of them to be okay as far as can be expected and, after they avoid the apocalypse, he’s going to support Klaus with all of his will in order for him to conjure Diego’s brother-in-law.

“Good talk.” Diego breaks the silence. “But I _am_ sleepy.” He spins his body to the left and turns off his lamp. “Try to... Try to remember all of the times Dave hugged you and all that jazz. Good night, guys.”

“Good night.” Ben says, spinning around and leaving to the corridors. He’s planning to look in the streets for the guy with the gray hair and the young girl.

On the other side, Klaus does follow Diego’s advice. He closes his eyes for a brief moment and looks at the pic on the nightstand, getting the small table closer to his side of the bed, closer to the level of his eyes. He sighs deeply and he can already hear his brother’s snores. He stares at the photo and smiles with sadness, or rather, he’s sad with joy. He bends a little to the bottom of the bed and takes off his anklet, just for tonight, and looks back at the pic again after putting the silver souvenir as a bracelet, in his left wrist.

“I don’t know many times I’ve said this...” he tells Dave. “... but I miss you. I’ve decided to let things happen as they happened because... I’ve accepted our reality. I’ve accepted that you died. That doesn’t mean I’ve overcome your death. Acceptation is not the same thing as overcoming.” He has to tighten his grip on the anklet for not breaking down. “I don’t know what to do if I can’t get to conjure you. I’ll have to overcome your death as a normal person without powers who loses someone. And that terrifies me.” He keeps quiet for a while. “What do I have to do now? I know I have to focus on all of this: how to stop the end of the world. But your absence, I can feel your absence each and every day, every hour. I have to figure out what happened between Reginald and Erin... so I have to return to this gray infraworld taken from a video game, to ask him what happened. I need those answers for us to succeed. But what about _my_ answers? I can’t match both of those objectives, they don’t have anything to do with the other. I mean... I don’t know.” Klaus sighs and kisses the anklet, smiling. “Anyway, thanks for listening, Davey. Do ghosts sleep? I wanna know. Good night, man.”

****~~~** **

Allison is washing her teeth with the worst and cheapest toothbrush in the world. Then, she goes to the kitchen to drink some water and he bumps into Luther. They smile at each other without knowing what to say after Five’s confession on the highway. It’s hard to take in.

“How do you feel?” she whispers, as everyone must be sleeping because the six lamps of the bedrooms are turned off. “I mean, with what happened in... you know.”

“Well...” he mutters and they sit on two chairs. “I don’t know how I feel. I never thought it’d be possible to dance with you again.”

Allison smiles with sadness and something else in her eyes that he can’t identify. What thing? What is going on with her?

“Never did I.” she comments. “But hearing it from Erin’s mouth...” She strokes her face and Luther hugs her as close as he can. “I guess that’s why Klaus must have snapped right there.”

“It’s understandable.” he says. “I wouldn’t have done it, but it’s understandable.”

“Yeah.” she says and looks back at him. “We... We can postpone ourselves for after we avoid the end, right? I mean, there’s plenty of time to talk about _us_?”

“Yeah.” he reassures, nodding. “We-We know we didn’t leave from 2019 in the best way possible, after my rave and all, but we’re okay, right?”

Allison blinks two times in a row and smiles quickly.

“Yeah.” she says after a pause. “Sure.”

****~~~** **

Ben is walking on the streets. He depends on his brother, so he’d look even like a normal person if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s not tangible or even visible right now.

He tries to spot a brown building, but all of them are gray or white or old. Maybe Five couldn’t see well an hour ago because of the darkness and the building he saw was from another color, like red or orange. They still live on a hideout of an abandoned building that can barely keep on itself in one of the less safest neighborhoods of the city, but when an organization of assassins that can space and time travel is pursuing them, the dangerous neighborhood looks like nothing.

He feels lost. He knows he’s dead, but being pulled between the infraworld and the Earth, he doesn’t know where he belongs anymore. He still spends more time in the physical worlds because his family needs him. He can’t be a normal person because of his current state of existence and he needs to help his family to do the next right thing. He knows Klaus can’t really _die_ because of his abilities, but Ben knows there are a lot worse things than dying. What if something happens to Klaus? Can Ben _sacrifice_ himself in the afterlife, where he’s already dead?

That shit is confusing. He’s been dead for more than a decade and he doesn’t know shit.

He doesn’t understand Diego. When the siblings were split at a young age, there were only him and Luther and their father sent them both to missions individually. Ben only stayed with their father because he didn’t want to see how Klaus got used to having an overdose every three weeks at such a young age, so he decided to stay at the Academy with Luther, Grace, Pogo and their father. Ben thought that Diego got angry easily with their father. He knew all of the shit he put all of them through, but he decided to stay because he didn’t have anything else better to do in life. Ben didn’t fight until the end like Diego, especially with the way he died.

And with Klaus... well, he was the one (and still is) he got along better with, but that doesn’t mean he agreed with everything he did, like getting high and all. In fact, Ben decided not to follow his brother with moving out of the Academy with him. They argued after Ben had confessed to his brother that Ben thought that Klaus’ powers weren’t an excuse to get high. Klaus told him to go to hell and moved out alone, but he still was sunk in sorrow when he saw Ben the next time, which was as in ghost form, which meant he had died.

Ben still thinks the same and he hasn’t talked about that with him yet. Also, it’s because Klaus has been doing really well. He knows Klaus wants to smoke two or three entire boxes of cigarettes a day despite the few ones Hazel can get, but he’s been doing okay.

Something diverts his attention. Ben’s advantage is that he can’t be attacked; he’s not solid with Klaus sleeping. He must be probably dreaming with ghosts, nightmares, Dave or elephants with butterfly wings about to shit on his face.

But, in the moment, he’s all alone, which is also an advantage. In the middle of the darkness, he sees a shadow about five feet and ten inches and another one about five feet.

The old man and the girl, some yards away, walking on the sidewalk.

He’s wearing dark blue clothes, even navy-blue tones. She’s wearing lilac clothes and both are wearing blindfolds of the same colors. Ben wonders if they’re covering their eyes for not being discovered or because something happened to them. On the other hand, they must be the responsible ones for the orange light Five and Vanya saw when they were training alone. The light didn’t get to attack his siblings, it just disappeared in the air.

There are two options. Either the light was caused by the heavy weights and these two stopped it or that they caused it themselves in order to help, to shoo their enemies away.

If these two want to help, is the Commission their enemy too?

Probably.

Did these two people exist in the original timeline?

Probably not because there weren’t heavy weights there.

Ben goes behind them, carefully just in case. They don’t know anything about the man and the girl, so he needs to go slow. If they’re helping, what else are they capable of?

Suddenly, the old guy makes himself and the girl stop walking, with one of his hands on her shoulder. The young woman looks at him. Just in case, Ben hides behind a street mailbox. The two people stand still for a while, giving their backs to him.

“Still.” the man tells her with seriousness and she obeys. She pays attention. “I think Ben is here.”

Ben opens his eyes and mouth wider.

“Are you sure?” she asks, looking a bit at him. Her voice looks kind of familiar, but he doesn’t know where he heard it. “I mean, you can’t see the dead, how...?”

“I do feel ghosts.”

What? Do they know about all of them an-?”

“Are you sure?” she says with a really serious tone.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “I’m not Klaus, I don’t have necrokinesis, but I know we’re being watched. And if we’re being watched by a spirit, it’s gotta be Ben.”

Ben frowns and starts going backwards, exactly where he came from.

“Yeah, I guess. Better Ben than Five.”

What the hell?

Ben runs to the hideout as fast as he can.

**_**[“DARE”, Gorillaz]** _ **

_It’s coming up, it’s coming up, it’s coming up_

_It’s coming up, it’s coming up, it’s coming up_

_It’s dare_

****~~~** **

Five is sleeping deeply when he notices someone tapping his shoulder once and again. He stirs under the sheets and notices how Klaus is looking at him, alarmed. Five sits as his two sisters also wake up.

“What is it?” Five asks, drying his saliva from his mouth.

“I know I’m not talking to you, but this is important, Ben saw something in the street.”

The others wake up and they see it’s already half past three. This is just like last night when Klaus disappeared. Ben stands right in front of the blackboard, but he’s intangible because Klaus is tired; rubbing his eye and still drooling. He needs a good night’s sleep, a good dream.

“What did you see?” Hazel asks with his elbow on the table and touching his face.

“So...” he mutters, trying to put it into words. “I saw the man and the girl. Pretty close, actually.”

“You saw them?” Luther asks sleepy but attentively now. Those are big news.

“Yeah. They were walking up the street with a normal pace, like if they were watching something... and he suddenly stopped both of them and, even though I hid, just in case, he told her to stay still because he suspected _I_ was there.”

The others frown.

“That... you were there? Spying?” Allison asks.

“What was exactly their conversation?” Five asks.

“He made them stop walking and stayed still for some seconds. Then he told her _still, I think_ ** _ **Ben**_** _is here_.”

“That can’t be possible.” Five spits with dignity. “I mean, he’s too old and she’s too young to have powers, they can’t possibly be two of the gifted children.”

“Stop, Five, stop!” Hazel snaps, rubbing his eyes. Apparently, after Diego, there’s another night owl. “Stop, please. Haven’t you thought superpowers exist before October the 1st of 1989?” They hadn’t thought about it. That makes sense. The Hargreeves twins have powers and they aren’t from the forty three children. “Those two weirdos are clearly involved with the umbrella thing. That’s why they must be helping.”

“We still don’t know if we can trust them or if they’re really helping.” Luther states, adding a little bit of sense to the late night conversation.

“Don’t you think if they know about us and our position that they would have already attacked us?” Diego tells. This time, Five doesn’t clench his jaw or anything, he just strokes his chin, racking his brain. “They must know we’re here. That’s why they’re always around this neighborhood.”

That also makes sense.

“We still don’t know how to look for them.” Luther says. “They’re elusive. I think we should wait for them to find us or meet us. If we’re in very big trouble in the theater, with the Moon event, they could help us. Maybe they’re planning to do that.”

“You’re suggesting they can see the future?” Five asks and Luther shrugs. He doesn’t know what to say. “Could be. Something that’s certain is that _he_ looks like the one who’s driving in their actions. He knows what they’re doing.”

They write that info on the blackboard and go back to sleep.

Then, early in the morning, they talk in the middle of breakfast while trying to remember what they were doing in the original timeline and what has happened over the night. In the morning, Vanya went to the Academy with Harold and tried to invite them to her first concert as first chair, but they dismissed it as nothing and she left, furious, and Harold noticing the first signs of her telekinesis. The rest of the morning, they were trying to work together as a team. Luther was going to figure out that everything that he investigated in the Moon was for nothing. Tonight’s the night of the rave, the night when Klaus went to this infraworld place he still doesn’t know anything about. Also, the Five from 1955 had sent messages for Hazel and Cha-Cha to exterminate each other and be distracted.

In the meantime...

“What do we do today?” Allison asks, putting on a soft green jacket while Luther wears his blue coat.

“Searching in the computer room, the same one where we found Erin’s identity.” Five states, preparing his satchel bag. Hazel found some satchel bags last night. “We figured out useful things there, we could have luck again. We’re going all together.”

“Last time we were together, everything went to shit.” Klaus jokes but serious. Five tries to ignore it and follows Vanya’s advice about being all together.

“We go together to the computers. It’s better if one or two of us stay in the entrance of the building, just in case. Ben.” Ben looks at him. “Can you stay here?”

He shrugs.

“I _can_ stay.” he says. “But what if someone comes? How do I warn you?”

“I have an idea.” Five goes to one crate and has a normal talkie but with strange and thin wires all around the object. Five puts it on the table. “I’ve been designing it the last few weeks. Ben can interact with this.”

“How do you know?” Ben asks.

“Even being intangible, ghosts still have 0’5% of interaction with the physical world, I read it in the book of _nothing_.” Klaus tells Ben. That would explain why the wind sometimes behaves weird or why some objects fall to the floor alone. “You could try to touch the wires or so. Try a pattern.”

“Which pattern?”

“I don’t know, like... six taps, a pause and other six taps.”

“Right.” Five says and Klaus just passes by his side as nothing, without a glance. Five tries to let that ignorance go the best he can.

They teleport to the same computer place for the second time. Allison tries to search on the computer; they have one hour. It’s not too much but enough. Luther and Vanya are in the entrance; discreet and covering up.

They’re in silence for about a quarter of an hour until they start talking about the weather.

“Sunny day but cold.” he comments. She nods calmly, still not too close to him. “I’ve barely had a moment to sit and just watch the sky.”

“Yeah. It’s been like four months, but it feels longer.” she says. She doesn’t know what to feel anymore, but she somehow feels a little bit more hopeful than when they first arrived in 2019. There’s another silence but shorter. “I miss watching movies.”

“I don’t.” he says, looking at a sign saying _the father, the son and the holy spirit will help you!_ and an old man giving bread to a pigeon. Something normal. Vanya looks at the bird luckily flying away. “I mean, I like reading, I like exercise, but... it’s stupid, but I don’t like movies because I think they’re too long.”

Vanya lifts an eyebrow, turning to glance at him.

“Even one hour films for children?”

“Why would I watch a film for kids?” he says and they chuckle together. A normal moment too. “I did promise to Klaus to watch _X-Men: First whatever_ with him.”

“I didn’t take you for a Marvel fan.”

“You know Marvel?” Luther says.

“Not really, just, I remember watching _Spiderman 1_ when we were thirteen in the cinema room from the Academy, the film of the year we watched, but I don’t remember anything from it.”

“I do.” Luther says. His sister looks at him. “It talked about using your abilities.”

“What a coincidence.” she comments, talking about herself. She sighs. “What else?”

“At the end of the movie, Peter Parker says _this is my gift, my curse_. Meaning that he has accepted his abilities and he’s gonna use them for being a hero despite having bad consequences.”

Vanya thinks about Peter Parker, the character. When she was thirteen, it had been years since Allison had rumored her, so she didn’t know she had powers, so she couldn’t identify herself with Peter Parker. Now, she does.

“Wow.” she just mutters. “Anything else?”

Luther tries to remember.

“Well, before deciding to be a hero, his uncle dies, so that’s an inspiration.” he answers. “And Peter remembers a sentence his uncle told him.”

“Which is?”

“ _With great powers comes great responsibility_.”

Vanya remembers that sentence. It’ll be something useful for them in the previous minutes of the apocalypse. She’s afraid if Five makes some _final sacrifice_ or something.

Luther’s talkie vibrates and he takes it.

“Yeah?”

 _“Something else going on out there?”_ Diego asks.

“Not particularly.” he answers. “What about you guys?”

_“About parallel universes? Nothing new. About dad and aunt? Nothing new. The only useful websites are blocked.”_

“Blocked? What do you mean with _blocked_?”

 _“Anytime we open those sites, a square jumps saying_ this content is blocked by the Government _. The question is if they’re blocked by the Government or if the Commission has hacked them.”_

“Good question.” he says. “Keep searching. Try to be careful and delete the history of what you visited after that.”

_“Copy. Bye.”_

Before Luther can keep inside the object, the talkie vibrates again. One, two, three, four, five, six, then stops. Then, it vibrates six times again.

“That’s Ben.” Vanya says. “We have to see if he’s okay.”

“I’ll g-”

“I can go.” she says. After all of the conversation about heroes and villains, she feels cornily inspired. “Don’t worry.”

Vanya gets inside and asks Hazel to teleport her and, because they need to talk to Ben, Klaus goes with them too. The three land on the hideout, where Klaus has already made Ben visible. He looks worried.

“What happened?” Vanya asks. Hazel goes back to the computer room.

“Ehm...” Ben tries to put into words. He tries not to play with his fingers like if he were playing with Chinese finger traps. “I heard something in the hall of this floor. It could be a family trying to move in sneaking out, but I went to see anyway. There wasn’t anybody and, when I returned, there were two small pieces of paper.”

“Where are they?”

Ben points at the blackboard, where his two siblings can see them. Two pieces of papers hanging from a thin thread. Weird.

“Weird.” Vanya says, getting close to the papers. One of them is folded several times and the second is rectangular, with an address. The three siblings stare at the papers like if they were going to change magically, but they don’t.

“Do we open it?” Klaus asks about the folded paper.

“We better wait for the rest.” Ben comments and looks at the other paper, the one with the address. “Have you heard about this address?”

“No idea.” Klaus answers. “We’ve been wandering around these neighborhoods, but I haven’t seen a street called like that.”

“I have.” Vanya says. “It’s on the other side of the city.”

“Really?” Klaus complains and rubs his eyelids. “We could search that address on the map from the phone book, even the number if there’s any.”

They open the crate of their hidden stuff and unfold the map of the city. They take a long time, but after a while, they find the address far from the center of the city and on the opposite end of the hideout.

“Okay...” Vanya mutters. “288B Dawn Street is here.”

They hear something behind them; it’s the rest of the group, landing next to the sofa. They don’t have anything but lost time.

“What happened?” Luther asks. They all look at the board. Hazel scratches his head. “What...? These two papers weren’t here-”

“We know.” Ben says, pointing at the open map. “We were trying to locate the address, which we already did. And we were waiting for you guys to unfold the other one.”

“Okay.” Five mutters and, after cracking his knuckles, goes to the blackboard after Luther lets him to. He takes the two papers carefully. He puts the address one (with perfect calligraphy but written with gold font) on the center of the table and the other one is watched by all of them. “Here we go.” Five unfolds the paper and frowns. “More addresses.”

“Why?” Diego complains and takes the paper with bother. Instead of a gold font, it’s even written with a blue, normal pen.

“How many?” Allison asks.

“Five.” he answers, leaving the unfolded paper on the table. “Why is the address of Dawn Street separated from the others? And it has gold color and a more casual calligraphy.” Five bites his lip and tilts his head. “I wonder if they’re written by the wiza-”

“Let me go to that place.” Luther says suddenly, leaving the others in surprise. “To Dawn Street. Please.”

“Why-Why would you want to go alone?” Allison asks, worried and getting closer to him.

“For doing the next right thing.” he states. Vanya can’t help but remember the conversation about Spiderman and heroes. Five could make a stupid final sacrifice, but apparently, Luther is willing to do something like that as well. “But not right now.”

“Okay, but when you go, you need someone.” Diego says. He thinks that his monkey brother would be even more stupid than he thought if he dares to go alone. “I’ll go with you.”

“Damn!” Klaus exclaims, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “Diego and Luther? Alone?”

It’s an inappropriate joke in the middle of the conversation, but he’s right.

“I think we’ll handle it.” Diego protests. Fuck. Luther feels like a pain in the ass for him, but he’s still one of his closest siblings. “Tell me you have a car.” he asks Hazel, who shrugs.

“Well... kind of... I know where _a_ car is... Only thing is... we have to steal it from a member of the Commission.” Diego and Luther open their eyelids wider. “Yeah, it sounds risky. But it’s that or paying a taxi and that shit is not cheap. You would have to take several taxis, this place is on the other side of the town.”

“Fine!” Diego hisses. “Let’s steal that car. Where is that worker?”

“Barely one block down the street, but he’s got a good eye. I don’t remember his name.”

**_**[“Die Young”, Ke$ha]** _ **

_I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums_

_Oh, what a shame that you came here with someone_

_So while you’re here in my arms_

_Let’s make the most of the night like we’re gonna die young_

_We’re gonna_ **_**die young** _ **

_We’re gonna die young_

_Let’s make the most of the night like we’re gonna die young_

****~~~** **

Hazel, Diego and Luther go to steal the car from the worker; they have to be really careful because it’s going to be in the middle of the day. The others stay on the hideout, searching the rest of the addresses on the map. Around 1 pm, when Allison goes to her bedroom, Five follows her.

“Hey, can we talk?”

Allison nods and they sit on the bed.

“Sure. What’s up?”

Five sighs and shakes his hair. They haven’t had much time to think about themselves and that includes himself. He did have one time to think about himself, lying on the deserted, frozen-in-time highway, looking at the blue sky, after fucking things up.

“Well... I’ve been all about trying to apologize to Klaus but not with you, Diego, Luther...” he mutters. Allison is surprised by his honesty. She doesn’t consider Five a liar but not someone delicate either. “I’m sorry.”

“Wow.” she says, smiling a bit. But now, he actually seems honest. That’s a very big step. “I mean... I forgive you, but you didn’t have any choice, you had to come back to-”

“I’m apologizing for lying, not for returning.” he says. His sister is proud. She knows he’s been doing better, that’s why she supported him on the highway. “I still didn’t tell you the truth. About your moment with Luther before you returned with Claire.”

Allison sighs and looks by the window.

“I... Well, that’s harder to cope with.” she answers with honesty. “But... it’s still okay.”

Five doesn’t want to talk about this delicate issue, but after what happened yesterday, he’s going to tell the truth no matter how much it hurts.

“Like we talked in 1952, you rumored Vanya, right?” he asks softly. Allison looks away and strokes the bridge of her nose, something Luther usually does. 

“Yeah. I did.” she answers with tight a throat. Just like with Claire, there isn’t any moment she doesn’t regret that, even if she was just a kid.

“Have you talked to her about it?”

That’s a really good question. Allison stands up and rests her back against the wall of the bedroom.

“The first time we tried to talk about it, she slit my throat.” she comments. “I don’t think that happens again, but... you’re right. I’ll try to talk to her soon about that.”

“Okay.” he says, really serious. “You also did it to Claire, right?”

Allison doesn’t like this talk, but she needs it. It makes her realize that the sooner, the better. That takes her thoughts to Luther. The sooner the better also applies to the confession she has to tell him?

“Yeah. I mean, when you’re raised with a lot of competence, you tend to use your powers to solve everything.”

“Yeah, just like me. That’s why I was impulsive enough to try my time travel when I wasn’t ready. I wonder if dad knew I was gonna do it anyway.”

One of the many, many causes of the apocalypse is that Five wasn’t there with them the first time around so that he could teleport them to the past. They wonder if Reginald raised Five as someone impulsive and ambitious towards his powers so that he went to the future on purpose. In that case, he knew that Five needed to spend decades alone in the future to work in the Commission on purpose. Why? They’ll never know.

Maybe the old man and the girl do know that.

“Yeah. That’s weird.”

“Not to be annoying and nosy, but is there anyone else you rumored?”

“I...” she mutters and hesitates. “Yes. Luther.”

Five is surprised by that answer.

“You have to tell him you rumored him into whatever you did.” he insists and Allison nods with her eyes closed. If another person is telling him that the sooner the better, it must be true. A breakdown could be dangerous for them right now, but look what happened to Klaus for having his truth hidden. “I’m serious, Allison. I thought that keeping the truth to myself for after the apocalypse would be a good idea, but look how Klaus reacted. And with a good reason.”

Allison nods again.

“I’ll tell him soon. Tomorrow, maybe, they’ll search for the weird address tonight.”

****~~~** **

Hazel, Luther and Diego return with the briefcase, exhausted, sweaty and on the edge. The others get close.

“Okay, what happened?” Five asks, eating an apple from a chair and with a notebook under the other hand. “Did you steal the car?”

“Yeah.” Diego pants and stretches his muscles out of exhaustion. “Not easy. That jackass must be freaking out right now.” They try to rest. “We have the keys... and that guy had strange weapons. We stayed with the ones Hazel knows how to use.”

“Perfect.” Five claims. “When are you going to the gold address?”

Luther goes to the table and takes the small, rectangular paper from the table. He has read it like one thousand times. Diego gets close and stares too.

“I don’t know.” Luther responds. “I think after supper, like 10 pm.”

Diego smells his armpit and has a gag reflex.

“I smell like feet.” he comments. “We still have things to do, so after supper, I’ll take a quick shower and we’ll leave in the stolen car.” He turns to Hazel, who’s eating a cookie while reading the brown book of _nothing._ “What do we do if the police suspect something and read our license plate?”

“You leave the car immediately and continue on foot.” he answers. “You call me and I’ll go on with you wherever you are, but you better be careful. You also have to rest and if you take too long searching the place, you’ll have to sleep.”

“Sleep in the car?” Diego shrugs. “Okay. I used to sleep in the back of a gym, nothing new.”

Hazel thinks that is sad, but he knows that Diego hates when someone feels pity towards him.

Allison returns from preparing one round of the washing machine (with no detergent or fabric softener) and sees Luther looking at the board, now with all of their papers on the blackboard. They take them out when they need to write something on it. She gets close to him, who smiles with her presence.

“You’re still nervous about the car thing?” she asks.

Luther bows his head.

“Not for being pursued, we’re being pursued since our original 2019.” he answers. “I know we have to do it for the greater good, but I still hate stealing.”

Allison nods and touches his arm.

“I know. I hate it too.” she agrees. “But if we make this right, we won’t do it anymore. Besides, like Ben said, _the end justifies the means_.”

Luther knows that already, but he still doesn’t like it.

“I know.”

Allison smiles, remembering her conversation with Five.

“Luther.” she mutters and he looks at her. At least, in that corner, between the sofa and the board, they have a little bit of privacy. She still can hear how Klaus wants to put green nail polish on Vanya’s nails despite her not liking that color. “I have to tell you something... but not now, okay?”

“Is it too serious?” he asks. She nods. That leaves him uncertain, but he can endure. “Okay. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

They spend the rest of the day doing their research. Around 6 pm, they figure out that the old man and the young girl could also have clairvoyance in order to watch them (both the siblings and the Commission) because they’re walking around their neighborhood when their address is on the other side of the city. However...

“... what if this is a random address the Commission has put in here for us to fall into their trap?” Ben asks, holding the rectangular paper of 288B Dawn Street and moving it under the lights of the living room.

“It could be a trap.” Five agrees. “But, if these things were left by the Commission, why? They would have destroyed this place for us not having a place to stay. Also, the association is pretty discreet. They don’t have _addresses_.”

“Right.” Hazel says, looking at the papers on the board. Just when they keep talking, Ben frowns when he notices something like a holographic symbol on the top left corner of the gold address he’s holding. “We have enough food, so Diego and Luther can take at least a little bit with them.”

“Really?” Luther says. “It’s not better if we just take money with us?”

“I thought I was the bill guy.” Hazel says and Luther shrugs. “Then, I state that the best thing is you take food.”

“Guys.” Ben interrupts the conversation and turns around. His family looks at him. “I think I noticed something on the paper.”

“What thing?” Allison asks. Everyone gets close and Hazel takes the paper, moving it under the light. There’s a gold holographic symbol that can barely be seen. When Hazel finds the right position, they see the small symbol of an umbrella and a two on its right. Saying that they’re surprised would be falling short. “Oh... god.” Some of them take a deep breath. “They _do_ know about us... and a lot, apparently.”

They don’t know what to say first.

“This is terrible!” Diego protests. “If they’re helping us now, why didn’t they do that in our original timeline?”

“I don’t know.” Luther says. “The Commission had heavy weights up the sleeve, but the Academy...” Luther strokes the bridge of his nose, thinking. “Oh.”

“Oh, what?” Allison asks.

“The Handler is using heavy weights. And, then, these two guys appear out of nowhere.” he answers. “The old guy and the girl are our heavy weights.”

It doesn’t look like so.

“How?” Five asks.

“Dad could have called them.”

“Luther...” Five says between his teeth. “I know you’re trying, but, come on, how could he have called them if he’s dead?”

“You know, maybe he did it before dying. He had powers too, right? He must have known we would go to another universe. We need to ask those two people.”

“Okay.” Five accepts, taking the paper from Hazel’s hands. “And what is this _two_ over here next to the umbrella?”

They don’t know. They keep talking about their scheming until it’s supper time. While they’re eating, they do an update of their position: Luther was in the rave after feeling useless about his journey to the Moon with Klaus trying to go after him and, earlier that day, Hazel had been trying to convince Agnes to run away with him for the close apocalypse.

While the group is talking, Luther and Diego prepare themselves.

“We’re gonna take several hours.” Diego says, putting on a gray jacket. “We’re gonna leave the original map here and we’re gonna take this copy with us.” Diego puts the photocopied map inside the bag they’re going to take with them both; Luther takes it and reluctantly accepts the guns Hazel hands him over. They have their sunglasses, scarves, talkies, food, water, a blanket and gloves. Also, the most important thing in the mission. The address with gold font.

“Be careful, okay?” Allison tells them both. “We need everyone in the last event. Also, you’re family... and family has to be safe.”

“Don’t worry.” Diego says. “We’re not planning on dying.”

Diego goes to the door and starts unlocking it. Luther gets close to her and they share a sweet glance. She touches his arm.

“Be careful.” she mutters.

They hug for brief seconds that are much needed, but when they split they feel better. Luther goes with Diego and they go down the street to the stolen car. Allison gulps, but she takes a deep breath and returns to brush her sister’s hair for the night.

Once the two brothers arrive at the car, they open it and lock it back again. The streets are pretty dark and cloudless. Luther leaves the bag on the seats of the back while Diego starts the engine of the vehicle.

“It’s located in the north of the city, right?” Luther questions and the other man nods while adjusting the mirrors. The night is calm at the moment. “This is gonna be long. We’ll probably have to sleep here.”

“Yeah. We haven’t really talked about it, but what do we do when we find the place?”

“I’ll go inside.” he says. Before Diego can protest, his brother keeps explaining. “Look at these dudes. They obviously know about us, that’s been confirmed. If they’re here in this timeline, they’ll definitely help us stop the apocalypse.”

“What if it’s dangerous?”

“I’m useless, Diego.” he mutters. And, again, Diego is interrupted when he’s about to talk. “I’m just strong, not even that much anymore, if there’s anyone who can truly do something in the third event, that’s you.”

“But-”

“But nothing. You’ll stay in the car. I’ll go inside. If I’m in danger, I’ll call you on the talkie.”

Diego wants to protest, but he nods and starts driving once they’re with their sunglasses on. It’s going to be a long night, so they better keep conversation for later.

**_**[“Dark Horse”, Katy Perry]** _ **

_I knew you were_

_You were gonna come to me_

_And here you are_

_But you better choose carefully_

_‘Cause I’m capable of anything_

_Of anything and_ **_**everything** _ **

****~~~** **

Allison finds Klaus lying on the sofa with his eyes closed and his palms open.

“Are you sleeping?” she whispers and he shakes his head immediately. His white ankle boots are off and he’s touching the anklet with his right foot. “Then, what are you doing? Meditating?”

“Kind of.” he mutters. He sighs dramatically. “I’m trying to, _you know_ , think about my problems, trying to solve them and all that jazz.”

Allison doesn’t sit on the sofa, but she watches her brother from a close chair they put around the board when they’re talking about their missions, like a lesson in a college.

“What are your problems? Not to be nosy or... anything.”

“Well... I need to somehow go back to this bizarre infraworld where I met Regi, when I kind of died.” he says, still closing his eyelids. “The answers about Regi and our auntie are there.”

“And that’s _your_ problem too?”

He knows she knows what the issue might be.

“Well, it’s _our_ problem.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s yours too.”

Klaus sighs.

“We need answers about the twins. But... I need _my_ answers too, which doesn’t have anything to do with them.”

“Why not?”

Klaus doesn’t know how to express his thoughts into words.

“I only have _one chance_ to go to this world... and there would be time only for one answer. If I go successfully to this place, I’m obviously choosing the first option.”

“You haven’t answered.” she notes. “Why do you think the answers are incompatible?”

“Because the answers about Regi and Erin don’t have anything to do with myself.”

“Don’t they?”

Klaus opens his eyes and looks at his sister from down there, on the sofa.

“No. Even if they’re the origin of all of this, I need something else that has nothing to do with them to help me figure out... why I have to lose people I care about once and over again.”

He thinks about a lullaby Grace sang to them a night when he couldn’t sleep and they were just little kids, but he barely remembers it.

“You’re talking about Mom, Pogo, Ben, Dave?”

“Yeah. Them.”

He doesn’t count Reginald.

“I don’t have that answer, Klaus.” she says. Klaus closes his eyes again and puts his hands on his chest. “I’d tell you that _your_ answers are in that place, but you’re the one to decide which thing to find there.” They keep silent. It’s similar because Vanya is lying on their bed too while Five is trying to make her train her mind in order to keep calm in missions. Hazel is guarding the building and Ben is in the streets. Then, Allison clears his throat after a while. “Uh... Klaus?”

Klaus opens his eyes and is surprised to see the table levitating a little bit over the floor. He sits and realizes his hands and forearms are glowing with blue lights, just like in the theater fight of their timeline. He doesn’t like doing this, but he pushes through it. Klaus makes fists with his hands and focuses on the table. Five gets close with Vanya and his mouth wide open.

The table gets down to the floor and Klaus strokes his eyelids. He doesn’t know why, but his mind is not spinning around this time and he doesn’t feel so jumpy. It must have been his mediation.

“That was great!” Five claims and looks at his brother. They all smile at him. “How did you do it?”

“I...” Klaus stutters and stands up slowly. “I just lied on the sofa and meditated with my hands open.”

“That was really good.” Vanya cheers up.

“I mean... I don’t even know...” Klaus looks at the table, where two objects (besides old candles) are. The picture with Dave and Diego’s black scarf because he took another one before leaving. “Do those things have anything to do?”

“Of course.” Five notes. “That connects your powers with Dave and your family.”

“Well, Dave is family for me too.” Klaus corrects with a little bit of annoyance, which Five has to ignore. It’s true. If they count Hazel as family, Dave too. “But that makes sense.”

“Look, I know you don’t want to talk to me, but what if we train that aspect a little bit?”

Klaus frowns and sighs. He cracks his neck, remembering what happened yesterday on the highway. It’s not easy to forget, but they all need this. Anything to help in the future fight in the theater.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Klaus takes a chair from the table (like his siblings), crosses his legs and his hands are left open, just like in a yoga position. He closes his eyes and focuses on _family_ ; what he considers to be the meaning, what matters to him. He also remembers Luther’s words when they trained for the first time in the industrial unit. Not forgetting his losses but having them in his mind and putting the good moments in front of anything. Good memories nobody is going to take away from him.

After some minutes, Five clears his throat.

“Klaus. Look.”

Klaus opens his eyes and is surprised to see the table and two lamps levitating and the two doors of the house shaking. That’s really impressive in just a matter of minutes. He could do all of this without drugs and alcohol?

The others look impressed too.

After some seconds, he feels a pang in chest and flashes of light inside of his mind and, then, he sees some images clearer: the mausoleum Reginald used to take him too all weeks, all of the times he argued with Ben when they needed support the most, the first time he got into a fight in a club because there was an homophobic asshole who wanted to steal his crack when he was about twenty years old, some horrible nightmares of ghosts wanting to kill him, his torture, going to Vietnam, losing Dave, losing his Pogo and his mom.

Klaus sobs out loud and screams covering his ears. The windows of the bedrooms break into pieces and the doors slam shut, while the objects return to their spots on the floor. Klaus stops screaming, tightens his eyelids and curls his body in a ball.

Five tries to comfort Klaus, but he snaps, shakes his brother’s hand off and stands up. He keeps weeping and Allison gets close this time, but she doesn’t touch him.

“Are you okay?”

“No!” he screams. He rests his back against a wall clumsily. He’s shivering all over and his breath stutters. “No...”

Allison hugs him and Vanya taps his back to comfort. Five doesn’t do anything, he just reflects on the situation. Klaus’ struggle is huge. If he manages to go back to the infraworld, he needs answers for all of them, but if he does that, he can’t get answers about himself, which would be bad for Klaus himself.

****~~~** **

When Ben returns, it’s to find his brother hugging the picture between his arms while the anklet is acting as a bracelet as he’s curled up onto his bed; his sisters are trying to comfort him and Five obviously stays away because Klaus asked for it. Ben knows what happened, but Five explains that it was because he tried to train here. They could go to an industrial unit, but the two events they have to prevent are just around the corner and they have already lost too much time. Ben is mad at Five, but this time he supports him too. Because if they keep blaming Five about everything, he’s going to feel alone.

“Well...” Ben mutters. “There wasn’t anything on the streets. Nothing like I found tonight, hours ago. Not those two dudes.”

“Our heavy weights.” Five comments. “I wonder where they are. Probably in the gold address. But what about the other places?”

“No idea.” Ben says. Some seconds pass as nothing. Klaus has stopped sobbing. Five thinks about the building the old guy and the girl got inside. That brown building was close to their hideout, but the address of the paper is at the other side of the town? That can’t be possible... unless they use some kind of portals. Ben looks at the board. “Wait...” he mutters and, when he stands up, Five follows him. Ben looks at the papers and, apparently, he doesn’t find the one he’s looking for. He looks at the papers inside a crate and finds the unfolded map they took when they went to Reginald’s office with Klaus in the night. He puts it on the table. The double maps: one with the forty three dots and the second one of the weird universe where the Hargreeves twins are from. “Look.” he tells Five, who looks at the red dots. “There are five dots around the city.”

Five remembers there are five addresses written in blue font of one of the papers from their own heavy weights.

“Oh.” Five mutters, then he snaps. “That’s brilliant, Ben!”

Five can’t help but hug his brother briefly. Ben frowns but accepts the hug.

There are five gifted children around their city. Maybe it’s not enough against the Commission, but it’s something.

“Huh.” Ben mutters and Five frowns. “Nothing, I was just wondering if one of these five people is one I saw in the street when we were thirteen.”

Five struggles to catch up, like if he caught a series by a random episode.

“You...” he stutters. Five can’t help but tapping on the floor. “You saw someone with powers and didn’t _tell us_?”

“I just remembered! It happened a lot of years ago.” Ben defends himself. Five is upset, but he understands. This is a patience he has been able to learn over the past four months. “Besides, I wouldn’t have been able to connect it to all of this.”

“How so?” Five insists. “Tell me.”

“It happened when you were still in the present. We were on the second mission to the open public, the second time dad introduced the Academy to the world. I got out of control and there were a lot of people with photos and all, so I couldn’t handle it and got away, remember?” Five nods. “I ran towards a deserted street and hid in a dead-end and curled on the floor, trying to get myself into control...” Ben gulps. It’s something not easy to remember. “Seconds later, I noticed someone was walking towards me behind me and, in an attempt to keep myself at bay, I made my tentacles shake, but I didn’t _grab_ anything. I turned around and saw a young woman dressed as a hiker, with a hoodie, and covering her face with...”

“With what?”

Ben remembers.

“With a blindfold.”

“That girl you saw with the man.” he realizes. Now it makes more sense, much more sense. “How did she avoid your powers?”

“With her own, I guess.” Ben guesses. “The thing is that she got close to me carefully with a reassuring gesture, knelt down in front of me and reached out. She told me _calm down_ , but I couldn’t, the tentacles were still on edge. Then, she said... she said _look, I have powers too..._ That’s when I could get myself in control, when I saw her showing me her glowing yellow hands.”

“Wow...” Five mutters. That girl helped his brother. They’re actually helping them. “Wait, the light we saw with Vanya was yellow.”

“You said it was orange, that’s why I didn’t remember about this.”

“It was yellowish orange.” they keep silence for a while and Five sighs. “That man and that girl have been watching us for years.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are interferences between dead and alive parallel universes  
> Who are the old guy and the girl?


	8. 2x07: "Firework"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What are the wizards actually planning?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seventh episode | Song: "Firework", by Katy Perry

_Do you ever feel like a plastic bag_

_Drifting through the **wind**_

_Wanting to start again?_

_Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin_

_Like a house of cards_

_One blow from caving in?_

**~~~**

When Hazel returns from the portal of the building, he sits to listen to what Five and Ben have to say about their possible, true guess. They all sit down with their chairs around the sofa and the board after Ben manages to cheer Klaus up a little bit, at least for listening to this.

“What do you mean they’ve been watching us for years?” Allison asks, tapping her feet on the floor. Damn, Five, he really gave her his bad habit, but she can’t help it this time, especially with those news. “It doesn’t make any sense, we thought that they didn’t exist or _were_ in our timeline.”

“Yeah...” Five mutters, stroking his chin and looking at the board. “I don’t have an answer for this thing, really.” he confesses.

Then, Klaus thinks of how _his_ adult Dave told him their encounter in 1952 despite in their original timeline he didn’t travel to 1952. He travelled to this 1952 and met young Dave from this parallel universe, not the young Dave from their world, didn’t he?

“My Dave, from our timeline, remembered _John_.” Klaus decides to tell them. Five thinks about it too. “Which shouldn’t have happened because we didn’t go to _our_ 1952.”

“But I think that doesn’t have anything to do.” Hazel comments and the others don’t understand. “When you met young Dave, we hadn’t changed any events in history yet.”

“That makes sense... sorta.” Allison comments. Oh, Grace was right when she told them as kids that they weren’t ready to talk about quantum physics, not even as adults. “Okay, what about the two wizards?”

They don’t even know what a wizard exactly is and whether the old man and the girl are wizards, but they’ve decided to call them that. It adds a little bit more sense to the conversation.

“Yeah, we shouldn’t remember anything from the wizards because they weren’t in our world.” Ben agrees. “But they were. That girl helped me. There weren’t signs about them anywhere in our universe.”

“Were they?” Five says, frowning, tapping the floor with a foot. Allison tries not to do that now. The others don’t understand Five. “Maybe... There were signs about them everywhere and we just didn’t see it.” He sighs. “The question is... how are they in this universe too?” He looks at the ceiling for a brief moment. Maybe they just can space travel too. “And who called them.”

They think it’s their father, but they don’t say that out loud.

“If they know about us, they must know what we were going to do and how to follow us to this world.” Klaus suggests. “If they’re actually wizards, they must have followed us with no problem.”

“I don’t get it.” Vanya mutters, still stroking her nape. “If they were also in our world, why didn’t they help in the original apocalypse?”

That feeling is unnerving. The two wizards were probably available when Vanya was at the edge of her powers, so why didn’t they help?

“No idea.” Five says. “But I don’t like that. We have to tell this to Luther and Diego.”

So, they try to tell their possible theory to Luther and Diego through the talkie. They have a lot of questions, but it’s midnight and the drivers of the stolen car are already tired; they haven’t found anything suspicious, but they’re three hours away from the place. They’re going to sleep inside the vehicle in a secluded corner of an open park.

The others try to keep talking about this too, but they’re tired as well. Vanya takes a long time sleeping, but her sister hugs her until they fall asleep. Hazel falls asleep easily. Ben does night surveillance, as all of these days, and Klaus takes a little long in sleeping, so he follows Diego’s advice from the previous night and thinks about how good Dave made him feel.

****~~~** **

After Luther finishes putting the big blanket all around over the vehicle, he comes back inside the car and Diego is already making an improvised bed on the back seats. However, he offers to sleep on the driver’s seat because his brother is going to do the most dangerous work in the morning. Luther lies on the new bed, but being big as he is, he has to be in a fetal position and his feet are hanging. The driver tries to get comfortable on his seat. The blanket over the vehicle is protecting them correctly. Diego is uncertain about his brother. Vanya told him in secret that she was afraid of Five making a big sacrifice, but what about Luther? He must be looking for redemption. Diego _hated_ when he locked Vanya up, but he doesn’t want him to die. Diego watches how a breeze of wind moves the blanket over the vehicle softly.

They cover themselves with their coats and turn off the lights. However, they’re still awake, tired but aware.

“What are you thinking about, Luther?”

Luther sighs and uses his arm as a pillow on the back seats.

“Thinking about tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after the other.”

They’re quiet again.

“If you want me to get inside the address, I-”

“No.” the big guy insists once more. “Let me do this, please. I need to do this.” Silence appears again. Diego frowns and closes his eyes. His stupid brother is willing to do a stupid sacrifice... “Diego?”

“What, big guy?”

Luther goes through hell to say this next thing, but he does.

“Thank you.”

Diego doesn’t know exactly what he’s thankful for, but he accepts it. He doesn’t want to ruin the moment.

“Thank _you_ , man.” he says. Damn, he didn’t think he would have this conversation with _Luther_. He really is redeeming himself, at least, the best he can after everything he has done. “Let’s have a good night’s sleep, ‘kay? We need it. All of us.”

After some minutes, Luther is already sleeping, snoring, but not as much as Diego does. In the meantime, he thinks about Patch. He thinks about Klaus too. Diego knows perfectly that his brother will offer to conjure her too anytime, but he doesn’t want to ask something like that to his brother when he’s already struggling so much for not being able to conjure his own partner, the man who means the entire world to Klaus.

No. He won’t ask Klaus that, not at this moment. Diego would have to ask that after avoiding the apocalypse and that has a 50% of success. Besides, after the end, Klaus will get into the issue of conjuring his boyfriend. He’ll be busy. But Diego will be okay, because he’s going to support him at any moment. Diego sighs and falls asleep.

****~~~** **

“ _Diego_...” Diego listens to a soft whisper. He stirs on the seat and yawns when someone touches his arm. It must be Luther’s voice. “Dude, wake up. It’s eight in the morning already.”

Diego rubs his eyes and yawns again. He stirs once more and opens his eyes. Just like his brother has just told, he can see a little bit of sunshine coming through the blanket. Good thing that nobody has bothered them tonight. Luther is returning to the copilot seat and leaves their bag on the backseat.

“I’m not tired. I can still drive.” Diego mutters, shaking his hair and taking a deep breath. After Luther returns from removing the blanket over the car, they put on their jackets and Diego turns on the engine. “Okay. Ready to go?”

“Yes.”

Luther nods and the car is driven out of the park. After an hour, he opens a bag of cookies and they eat with hunger. Then, he offers them both a delicious apple juice that makes their express breakfast better.

After two hours, people start appearing in the streets of the center of the city, going to schools or going to work in their normal lives. The family doesn’t know what that is anymore.

It’s been more than three hours and they start seeing dark orange buildings attached to each other. They’re not houses; this neighborhood in particular is more about business and academies of dancing, singing, art, libraries.

There are, however, a lot of parked vehicles in these streets because there isn’t any parking lot around that zone. When they enter Dawn Street, Diego parks on the first spot they find and he turns off the engine. They sigh at the same time and look at each other.

“Are you sure about coming inside alone?” Diego asks kind of worried.

“And I’m the pain in the ass.” the big guy jokes and his brother can’t help but crack a smile but more out of nervousness. This is just like their childhood, bothering each other but at the same time smiling. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen inside, that’s for sure, but I’ll warn you as soon as I see something weird. Besides, we better not leave the car alone. You can also have the street under surveillance from here.”

“Okay! You convinced me.” Diego says and, now, he glances at the other man with a more serious face. This is all about Luther’s sake. “Fine, Luther, you win. But... you better be careful.”

Luther nods.

“Like you said. We’re not planning on dying any time soon.”

Diego smiles again. Luther makes sure he has his talkie inside a pocket of his jacket and puts on his sunglasses before opening the door and leaving the vehicle. He closes the door and looks both sides before crossing the road and being on the indicated letter of the street. He looks at the signs of the gates of each building. _284B_ , _285B..._

Luther looks around, just in case someone’s watching him. But there are no workers from the Commission or any of the wizards, who are probably waiting for him.

 _288B_.

Luther sighs and takes off his sunglasses while looking at the gates. The building is exactly like the ones at both sides: short, dark orange, simple and light windows, discrete ambient and dark gates. He strokes his face and rolls up his right sleeve.

He knocks two times and, when he blinks again about to give the third knock, he opens his eyes and he’s not in the street anymore.

****~~~** **

They don’t exactly know much about these magicians. They weren’t even sure about 1% of what they could do before coming to 288B Dawn Street, probably time and space travel, energy manipulation, clairvoyance, slowed aging because the girl looked like sixteen both when she comforted Ben than right now in 2019? The thing is that their knowledge about them is low to none.

More like none to below zero.

When Luther opens his eyes at his next blink, he’s not in front of the portal anymore. It takes just a few but slow seconds to realize what happened. If they can space travel, they might teleport other people too. Perhaps. The thing is that he’s teleported inside. He’s under a good but only light directed towards him, or rather, to the wooden intermediate level he is in now. He decides to carefully look around where his eyes are directed to. There are shelves, behind shelves, behind other shelves. The books are brown to golden, perfectly calligraphy on the titles, the same font and color they used on the paper of their address. Luther sees as there are strange objects (weapons?) displayed on the shelves too. Are they magicians because of the objects or are these guns just in case? He doesn’t know. The place has more levels, a lot, more than he saw outside, where he noticed there were barely three. That’s strange. The place is too silent for what he expected from people that are allegedly helping them. That’s strange too. He doesn’t know what to expect or what to do. Call them? Wait around there? Take the talkie and talk to Diego? No idea. As the opposite, this leaves him with so many questions.

“Luther Hargreeves.”

He freezes.

Despite having his hands trembling, he gulps deep, cleans the sweat off his forehead and turns around. There’s a shadow waiting for him, lying her back (it was a female voice) on a wooden column and crossing her arms over her chest. Sometimes, the simplest option is the best option, so he takes a deep breath and asks.

“Who are you?”

He wants to ask where her instructor is, but he decides not to.

The girl gets out of the shadows at five yards away but doesn’t move too much. He can see her now better. Like Ben described, her hair is dark brown and in a ponytail. Her clothes are lilac, just like her blindfold that covers her eyes (her eyebrows show seriousness and attention) and simple shoes.

She stands with certainty and takes a step forward.

“Who are you?” he asks again, not moving even a little.

She tilts her head, analyzing him, and opens her mouth.

“My name is Trinity,” she answers with a neutral tone. “we have to talk about scheming. Take a seat.”

Luther looks around and doesn’t see any seat, but when he blinks again, he’s teleported to a zone to drink tea rounded by more shelves and three sofas. He’s forced to sit on one of them and, after he’s certain of the situation, he sees _Trinity_ is sitting on the one closest to him; her legs are crossed and her arms are on the armrests; again, paying attention to him but not in an aggressive way. He doesn’t know what to ask, so he says the first thing that crosses his mind.

“What is this?”

“Which thing?” she tilts her head.

“All of this.” he stutters. He doesn’t know what to say, what to expect. He doesn’t believe that he is where he currently is yet. He tries to calm down. “Are you... Are you really helping us or you’re gonna make us fall into a trap?”

Trinity doesn’t smile, but she looks like she wants to. She ends up sighing and putting her back straighter.

“Let’s start from scratch.” she mutters. He nods very slowly. Whatever it takes. “We have a lot to talk about.”

****~~~** **

Vanya opens her eyes and thanks to the cheapest watch in the world Hazel got for all of them, she sees as it’s almost 11 am. The others are already up; she can see a pair of them in the living room. She sighs and looks to the window over the head of the bed. Given Klaus broke them last night with his telekinesis, they’re covered with translucent sheets.

She stirs and sits on the bed. She stretches her muscles, stands up and goes to the bathroom. While she has breakfast with her siblings, she remembers how much she misses music. There is just something about playing her instrument that expressed what she was feeling.

Like minutes before the apocalypse.

At that realization, she tells her sister that she needs to go for a walk. She needs to quickly spend some hours alone, just _be_ , without worrying about her family or about the apocalypse. Allison tries to reassure her. Five insists that she has to carry her sunglasses and her talkie. She does that before going down the street while the others keep formulating theories, making connections, calculating their possibilities.

Vanya walks to a wood carving store and immediately leaves, reminding her of Harold. Minutes later, she sees an ice cream store and, luckily, she has some cash Hazel has been given to them.

When she goes to the entrance, Vanya opens the door with unintentional brutality and makes the ice cream of a young woman fall and stain her skirt. Vanya opens her mouth in bad surprise and grabs some napkins from a table and leans down to clean the floor; just like the woman does.

Her skin is clearer than porcelain and her hair is wavy and light brown. Her clothes are trendy and she was carrying an amount of college folders before they fell to the floor too. Her face, green eyes, has a normal shape and her smile is simple, now kind of embarrassed but not more than Vanya is feeling right now. This situation has made her feel normal all over again. It feels odd, but... actually good. Not the part about her siblings ignoring her or blaming her, but the talking to people part.

“I’m, I’m so sorry!” Vanya says cleaning the floor. They finish doing it and they throw the napkins into a trash can. Before the woman can do it, Vanya takes her folders and hands them over to her. They look at each other better. She’s actually really good looking. “I’m sorry, I-”

“Don’t worry!” she says kindly and they stand up. Her smile is really pretty. She feels better than minutes earlier. “Don’t worry, girl, this happens to me all the time, I’m so distracted by exams and all!”

“Did you bump into someone again?” a male voice asks, getting close to them. The woman nods and the man (both of them between their twenties or thirties) looks at Vanya, who can see him perfectly through her sunglasses. He has curly and black hair, his face is more squared and his smile is brighter. He’s way taller than the two girls but not too much. He’s gorgeous. “Sorry for my friend over here. I’m Mark Jones, she’s Laura Benson.”

“I’m...” Vanya thinks quickly. “I’m Sam Smity.”

She doesn’t want to put them in danger.

“Hi, Sam.” Mark greets kindly too. That’s surprising. “Do you wanna have an ice cream with us? For this little incident you?”

Vanya nods. _Discretion_ , but, she needs some normality in her life. She has an ice cream with her new two friends because that’s something she used to do after essays with her violin.

****~~~** **

Hours later, they don’t know where they’re going to, but Hazel guides them to a wide industrial unit but close to the core of the city. They’re worried about the place, especially because of all the people around that zone (rounded by shops and markets), but Hazel and Ben offer to have the place under surveillance while the others are trying to carefully read books on the shelves.

“Hey.” Klaus mutters to Vanya when they’re trying to reach dusty folders in a high shelf. She’s trying to look for a ladder from where she’s standing and her brother is opening a crate close to them. “Allison told me you hung out with two _friends_.” he says with a funny tone and his sister chuckles when he wiggles his eyebrows. Vanya feels suddenly flustered; she doesn’t know why. She only talked to them for three hours non-stop despite how special it felt. “Well... How did your date go?”

“Date?” she hisses out of breath. She has to think about that question before she’s able to answer something coherent. “That wasn’t a date, we were three...”

Klaus laughs and shakes his head in denial, like if she had just said something obvious.

“Aw, darling.” he says hugging her shoulder. She looks at him while raising an eyebrow. “We’re in 2019. Don’t you know about love triangles?”

Vanya does know about love triangles, even marriages between three people, but those new, trendy things are simply not for her; she feels too ordinary for that.

“Well, Klaus, I think I’m too normal and _classical_ for these things.”

“Didn’t Allison rumor you to believe you were ordinary? Maybe you’re not that much.”

Fuck. That’s a really good point. Vanya doesn’t know what to say to counterattack because she doesn’t really have an answer. She still is normal for certain things, like hobbies, but... for love?

“Anyway.” Vanya mutters, trying to divert his attention, which doesn’t usually work with him when it comes to love and sex and affairs, but they’re in the middle of a mission. Klaus is still trying with the crate under his hands, on the floor. Vanya hasn’t realized when she has stopped looking for a frigging ladder. Laura and Mark are still around her head. They have to move on. “We have to get to those folders. Let me-”

“No.” he offers, stepping back a little. “Let me try.”

Klaus stands with his body relaxed and his palms open. He closes his eyes with concentration and focuses on the folders; its weight, its shape, its possible age, its dust. Then, while keeping the objects in mind, he thinks about his losses and his good moments with those people. When he feels a pang in his chest, just like last night after trying, he tightens his fists and lets those feelings pass by, like saying hello (and goodbye) to a stranger in the street. When he opens his eyes back again... not just the folders are floating in the middle of the air but, also, all of the shelves around them, in a circle of twenty yards. The others get close, astonished.

This time, the telekinesis _turns off_ by his own will and the folders fall to Vanya’s hands.

“Good job, man.” Five comments with pride. “Did you do anything different this time?”

Klaus tries to talk with his brother, ignoring the feeling of not wanting to be next to him. He shakes his head.

“Well, I was able to...” Klaus tries to describe what happened, explaining with his hands. “I was able to overcome this pang in my chest.”

Something he thought it wouldn’t be possible. It will have this difficulty if he keeps practicing his telekinesis, growing bigger? It doesn’t look like so.

“How did you do it?” Allison asks, getting closer.

“No idea, but...” he gulps deep. Everyone is paying attention to what he’s saying; it feels good. “... today I had a dream.”

“What was the dream about?” Allison asks and, then, Klaus blushes while smiling naughtily. “Oh. _Okay_.”

“Oh?” Five asks, without realizing. When Klaus makes a circle with one hand and he puts two fingers inside from the other hand and moves them both, Five wrinkles his nose. “Really? Is it true that gay couples have a lot of sex?”

“I think that’s a cliché-” Vanya starts to say.

“Oh, no, _totally_ true.” Klaus interrupts with amusement. Five doesn’t find any point to that conversation. “What? It was just a dirty dream, you must know about it, Five. You didn’t have _certain_ moments with Dolores in the future?”

“Klaus, Dolores is just a mannequin.”

By putting a hand on his chest, Klaus pretends to be offended. Five laughs, but he knows that this moment isn’t enough to compensate for not telling the truth; he wouldn’t even forgive himself if he was in his situation.

“Well...” Klaus gets back to the conversation. “That dream was a memory, about the seventh month into my time in Vietnam. We had that moment in the worst motel ever, but we couldn’t handle blue balls anymore.”

“So, you remembered how good he made you feel in general?” Vanya asks. Klaus nods. “That’s good. Remembering how a person made you feel.”

Vanya doesn’t know how to remember how good a person made her feel to control her telekinesis. She loves her family, now more than ever, but Luther? Choked and locked her. Diego? Used to ignore and blame her. Allison? Rumored her. Klaus? Didn’t know anything about her and didn’t bother to do that. Five? Not much, but he left them when they were thirteen. Ben? Didn’t defend her when she needed it the most because he didn’t want to look bad in front of Klaus, the only friend he had when Five left.

“What is it?” Allison notes she’s uneasy about that aspect of telekinesis. “Come on, you know you can tell us.”

“I...” she sighs and closes her eyes for a second. “The people I care the most...” she stutters. “I’ve also had bad moments with them, how can I-?”

“Huh!” Klaus snaps, tapping a shelf next to him.“You think I didn’t have bad moments with Dave?”

“You did?”

“Of course.” he mutters. “In our squad, there was this aggressive soldier, Sean, and he was the worst... he punched me in the face when he lost against me in a stupid card game. Before I could do anything to defend myself, Dave jumped to him and got into a fight against that guy, good thing nobody got seriously hurt. Later, after the nurses healed my cheek, we escaped to talk about what happened and I told him he didn’t need to do that. He was tense, but after we talked, he felt better.”

“Wow.” Vanya mutters. She doesn’t know what to say.

“And that happened before we fell in love, one week after I arrived in Vietnam.” he says. He can’t help but smile. Dave wasn’t someone who solved everything with fists, not even close, but still, he was a soldier that had been in Vietnam for four years when Klaus met him. If he did something like that for him just being friends, he can’t imagine what Dave would do for him now. “After we did first fall in love, about five months of my arrival, he got to think that he didn’t deserve someone as special as me... and we argued pretty bad.”

“You argued?”

“Yeah.” he stutters, remembering the yelling of their argument (not a _loud_ yelling because they were really careful). Five doesn’t want to lose time, so he grabs the folder from Vanya and reads while listening. “After he confessed he thought he didn’t deserve me, I told him that he was stupid and dumb as heck, that he’d be one hundred percent better without my stupid childhood traumas _for once_ and, after we kept arguing, he stormed out.” He pauses. “We didn’t talk for a week, but we decided to talk things and made peace because we couldn’t handle being without each other.”

“He got mad at you for putting shit to yourself?”

“Yeah.” he stutters and he has to take a deep breath to not break down. “Yeah, he did. That’s why he was out of this world to me.”

Vanya reflects on it. Just because she has had bad, terrible moments with the people she loves doesn’t mean she can’t do this. Luther has been doing okay with redeeming himself. Diego is clearly closer to her, asking how she’s handling all of this. Allison has been saying sorry over and over again for rumoring her but not with words; however, she actually did this morning having breakfast. Klaus is closer too. Five is right by her side when she needs it and, well, Ben has clearly done much, like helping her after she helped destroy Meritech Prosthetics.

It’s 1 pm and they go back to the hideout with the folders they got. They’re not that useful, but it’s something. Allison takes her talkie when they’re preparing mac and cheese thanks to Hazel and presses the number one. Luther doesn’t answer, so she presses the next one.

 _“Yeah?”_ Diego asks. _“Who?”_

“Allison.” she says. “How are you two? Are you already coming back?”

 _“Well... Not exactly.”_ he says. _“It’s been two hours since Luther got inside and, before you say anything, he didn’t let me go with him. I’m guarding the zone from inside the car.”_

“Oh... Fine, what else?”

_“One hour ago I called him and he told me quietly that he was talking to someone called Trinity... and, then, he hung up.”_

“Wait!” Five interrupts, getting close to Allison and taking her talkie. He looks at the talkie with determination. “Trinity? Is she the girl that was with the old man?”

 _“Probably, but Luther didn’t describe her.”_ Diego answers. _“He’s talking to her.”_

“About what?” Five asks.

_“He didn’t tell me, but it’s serious, apparently. I think I’ll wait another hour before I call again.”_

“Okay.” Allison says. “Be careful.” She hangs up by taking her talking from her brother and looks at Five, who seems uneasy. “What?”

“Trinity...” he mutters, frowning and racking his brain. At least, he’s not tapping the floor with his foot, but he’s stroking his fingertips instead. “Trinity!” he snaps, clapping his hands. “There was a triquetra in the dark room of the Academy!”

“So what?” she asks.

“That dad knew about Trinity. He must have known about them. This confirms the theory that he did call them. They’re _our_ heavy weights.”

They do a quick update. That morning, Luther had woken up from the rave with a girl on his bed. Then, Klaus would have arranged a meeting for letting them know that Reginald had killed himself, but they didn’t believe him. Pogo arrived and confirmed it. The previous night, Vanya was with Harold, but they were attacked on purpose for her to manifest her powers. They must be already out of the hospital with Harold missing an eye. That makes them realize that the second event they have to prevent is _too_ close.

****~~~** **

Luther grabs a book from a random shelf and closes it again because he doesn’t understand anything. Well, in general, they don’t get anything from what is going on. He feels so lost right now.

“So...” he mutters, spinning around and seeing her with her back against the wooden wall of that level. The atmosphere is so tense. “Let me.. get this straight. You’ve been watching us since the original timeline.”

Trinity walks closer, but luckily, not too much. If only he could have her calm right now.

“Correct.”

“And why didn’t you help us in the first apocalypse? Why now?”

Trinity sighs like if it were too complicated to explain. And maybe it is.

“You know... We all hate the Commission, but they’re right about one thing. What’s meant to be, will be. You all needed to fail the apocalypse the first time because you learn certain things.”

“You know what’s going to happen?”

“I did.” she grinds her teeth. “But my master... he told me everything that was gonna happen up until the moment you knocked on our door. He told me everything, all of the things that have led to this moment, but he won’t tell me anything from right after you got inside.”

Luther doesn’t know why, but he trusts her.

“Okay.” he mutters, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Did you travel from our universe to this one?”

“Well... Not exactly.” she says. “We-”

Before she says anything else, Luther realizes it’s raining outside. There wasn’t any cloud when he found the portal in Dawn Street.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, it’s raining.” she answers, stroking her clothes. “You’re starting to get it, right?” Crap. Is it true? No way. Luther gets close to a translucent window around there and sees as the drops hit the glass. The intensity is not so much, but it’s still rain. “You’re, right now, in another multiverse.”

Luther freezes.

Crap, it’s true.

He faces her again, still close to the window.

“Parallel multiverses... exist?”

“Of course.” she nods. “Weird, my master told me you found a lot of info about multiverses and parallel universes.”

Luther doesn’t dare to move with this girl in front of him despite her being short.

“So... There are wizards in this multiverse?”

“Yep.” she nods once more. “We prefer to call ourselves in this world _magicians_. In this multiverse, even people without previous powers can learn magic. Powerless people can learn magic, so do people with powers.”

“You have other powers too?” he asks, but she doesn’t answer. Her master must have told her not to answer that. “Fine. So, you all can easily travel from one parallel universe to others and the same things with multiverses?”

“Actually...” she says, putting her hands together. “Only magicians _and_ people from the original timelines of each multiverse can travel through other multiverses. That’s why you’re here. You’re from the original timeline.”

“Okay...” Luther doesn’t want to ask this question so soon, but he needs to. “Let me get this straight. Are you helping us?”

Trinity bows her head, pretending pity. Pretending? He doesn’t know this woman, but she’s full of surprises apparently.

“Actually... That’s why we’ve led you here.” she says slowly. “For us to talk about the close apocalypse. The Handler has told you about the danger of preventing the end of the world, right?”

“Yeah. The interdimensional monsters.”

“Well... The magicians’ mission in all of the multiverses is fighting against these cosmic entities.” she reports. “We’ve been keeping an eye on you, not just defending you from the Commission but also from those scary creatures and their interdimensional attacks, avoiding those attacks to be in the physical Earth.”

“What do you mean?”

“That we’ve done everything we can so far. But we can’t do it anymore. We can’t be involved in preventing the apocalypse. That’s why we couldn’t help you the first time around or any other _around_.”

Luther takes a long time in processing that information. He feels so stupid right now.

“Why?” he snaps after a while. Still, Trinity is not surprised by his reaction. “Why can you help us in our missions but not right at the end of the world?”

“The end of the world in all of the multiverses is a catalyst.” she says, stuttering? “If the magicians are involved in saving the world from one multiverse, we’ll have to stay in this multiverse, trying to save the physical world again from the interdimensional monsters. If we intervene, the monsters learn to acquire a physical form on the physical Earth. That’s why The Umbrella Academy has to prevent the apocalypse on its own, so that the magicians can help other multiverses instead of just one.”

Luther doesn’t want to ask this question, but he needs to know.

“Is one of us going to die?” he says softly. Trinity seems to be surprised. “I mean, in the battles and all...”

Trinity clenches her jaw. Then, she snaps.

“Do you think Allison’s death would hurt you the most?”

Luther freezes again. Now he’s regretting this; Five should have come here. Did these guys predict he was the one in coming here? She said she doesn’t know what’s going to happen from now on. It makes sense she has just said that to make him think. Or maybe her master has told her some of them is going to die but not who.

After a while, he strokes his eyelids and takes a deep breath.

“We have to do it alone?”

She nods. Now Luther can tell that her pity is real.

“We’ve done so much already. But you have to do this alone.”

Luther reflects on it.

“If we can do this alone, are there possibilities we win in our own?”

Trinity is slow answering. But then, she nods.

“Yes.” she answers slowly. “Not gonna lie, you have a very small percentage of success in you winning. But you can. It’s possible.”

Luther gulps and sighs deeply.

“Fine.” he mutters. “We’ll meet again before the apocalypse?”

She shrugs.

“I don’t think so. My master hasn’t told me that, but I don’t think so.”

He nods and dares to move for once.

“Okay.” he nods, relaxing his hands. “I think this is all. Is there anything else we should know?” She doesn’t answer. “Fine.” He gets closer, barely two yards away from her. Trinity puts one foot behind the other and her arms do the same thing. That gesture makes him nervous. “You... I guess you can teleport me outside. But, the outside of my multiverse, not this one’s.”

Trinity sighs.

“So long, Luther Hargreeves.”

When Luther blinks again, he’s on the street once more. He takes some seconds before he sighs, strokes his cheeks and shakes his head.

What has just happened?

Will they see the magicians ever again? How many magicians are in that multiverse? How many are in this one if there’s any?

Just when he turns around, he bumps into Diego, who snaps and hugs him briefly.

“Man!” his brother exclaims. He’s obviously worried. “Are you, are you fine? It’s been hours, it’s almost 2 pm. What happened inside?”

Luther looks at the sign _288B Dawn Street_ and looks back at his brother.

“I have...” He gulps and strokes one of his temples. “I have so much to tell right now.”

****~~~** **

Hazel takes his vibrating talkie and asks Luther and Diego if they’re okay. The brothers tell him the direction they’re in and Five teleports back with them after a while. Allison gets out of the shower and gets close to them. Both of them look exhausted.

“So...” she mutters. The two of them take a deep breath. “What happened with the wizards?”

Luther shakes his head and sits on the sofa after leaving the bag on the floor.

“A lot.” he says. He accepts the glass of water Hazel hands him over. The others are listening. “By the way, they prefer to call themselves _magicians_.”

“There are magicians in this world-multiverse?” Klaus asks with a lot of papers on his lap.

“We don’t know if in our world. But definitely in other multiverses.” he corrects. The others are astonished. He still can’t tell if there aren’t any magicians in their world. “The old guy is the master of the girl.”

“Trinity.” Five notes.

“Yeah. Dad knew about them, despite these magicians are originally from another multiverse. But, the girl just knew all of that was going to happen, until I put a foot inside their _house_.”

“He didn’t tell her everything?” Allison asks.

“Not beyond I got inside.” Luther answers. “They’re from another multiverse, that’s why they could be in our original timeline and also in this one, and magicians can travel all around other multiverses because of their spells. They know about all of the alive and dead universes in our multiverse.”

Five can’t ignore the way Klaus bows his head.

“If...” Diego gulps. “If they knew about all of this, why didn’t they help us in the first apocalypse or in any other?”

“That’s the thing.” Luther mutters. “They... They can’t help us prevent the apocalypse because they’re avoiding other things.”

“Which other things?” Ben asks, indignant.

There’s silence for a while.

“Interdimensional monsters.” Five realizes.

“Yes.” Luther confirms. “If the magicians intervene in the apocalypse, the magicians must come to this multiverse _only_ to help us with the monsters.”

They keep silent for a while.

“Damn.” Diego mutters. “So, they can’t help us.” Luther shakes his head. “That’s so fucked up. You didn’t try to convinc-”

“No.” Luther says. “What for? They’ve been watching us all of our lives, they know us. Do you think we can convince them of anything?” Diego keeps his mouth shut. “We have to do this... on our own.” They’re quiet again. They even thought that the magicians were actually their heavy weights... Now, they feel like they have nothing. “They gave us the gold address for solving these questions. But, in the first hour, she told me they also gave us the other addresses for not being so alone.” They don’t understand. “The other addresses are other gifted children, like us.” he reminds them. “They can help us.”

“I don’t know.” Vanya says. “Look how successfully Erin convinced some of them to fight against us and with a good reason. Do you think any of these five people would want to help?”

“We have to try to talk to them, at least. That girl has given me their first names.”

**_**[“Lost Cause”, Beck]** _ **

_Your sorry eyes cut through the bone_

_They make it hard to leave you alone_

_Leave you here wearing your wounds_

_Waving your guns at somebody new_

_Baby you’re lost_

_Baby you’re lost_

_Baby you’re a lost cause_

****~~~** **

It’s 3 pm. After they have lunch, without trying to rack their brains too much, they rest a little and they talk about gathering the five gifted people the addresses have. Hazel gets down to the street with Klaus and goes to a phone both. Luckily, it’s kind of big and closed, so that nobody listens. Thanks to spending half the morning looking for the numbers of those addresses, they already know what to mark. Hazel marks the first number of the first address. He calls over and over again, but nobody answers. He tries to call the second one and, after a while, the call is taken.

 _“Yes?”_ a deep voice answers. It doesn’t even look like the guy is twenty nine years old. _“Hello?”_

Klaus mutters to Hazel to try persuade the person.

“Yes, hello, I’m Hazel.” he introduces himself. “Is Elias here?”

The voice mutters something lowly.

 _“Elias!_ Noen er på telefonen _!_ _Come here!”_

The deep voice keeps quiet and, then, someone clears their throat.

_“Yes?”_

The voice is male and way younger. Hazel thinks about something and says the first thing that comes to mind.

“We know you have powers.”

Klaus opens his mouth, but he would have done the same impulsive thing.

_“What!? Leave me alone!”_

The guy hangs up.

Hazel sighs in defeat and keeps calling. They try to call the Norwegian guy once more, but he doesn’t answer. Of course, they also try to ask the rest of the people in a subtler way, but only three of them agree to go and even these three people are doubtful about the situation. They go back to the hideout and tell what happened.

“Three?” Five asks. He’s looking at some papers on his lap from the sofa. “Well. It’s something. Which ones?”

“Bopha, Willa and Gonzalo.” Klaus answers. Five looks at the map of the forty three dots and sees one over Cambodia, another one over the UK and the last one in Spain. Actually, there are three in the UK and two in Spain. Klaus can’t help but stare at the dot over Cambodia, a country next to Vietnam. It brings so many memories. Good thing that there isn’t, however, any gifted children from that country. “Those three only.”

“What do we do now?” Allison asks.

“They agreed to meet with us at the nearest park around here at 8 pm.” Hazel answers. “Under the bridge of the stream.”

“Okay.” she says. “I can go.”

“I’ll go with you.” Luther claims.

Allison knows perfectly that, while they’re both waiting for these three gifted people, it would be a good moment to tell Luther the truth. She nods slowly and they prepare themselves; Luther and Allison figuring out what to say in their close reunion and the others try to talk about saving Allison’s copy and their movements in the apocalypse.

Later, when it’s half past seven, Allison turns to Luther.

“I think we should go to the park already.” she states, a bit nervous. “We should talk too, remember?”

He nods. They don’t take anything special except the same as usual: the sunglasses, the scarves, her dark jacket and his blue coat, the talkies and a lecture from Five to be careful. They go to the portal and, before they get out of the building, she takes his hands.

“What?” he mutters, in case there are families on this level.

“Well...” she mutters, bowing her head briefly before looking back to him. Of course, he doesn’t know what to expect from their future conversation. “I just wanted to say that... if the apocalypse ends up happening... I’m glad I’m with you right now.”

She doesn’t say this to make him tender before telling him the truth, but because she’s actually scared, which Luther can tell by her eyes. She tries to rest her head on his shoulder, but he takes her cheek with tenderness.

“Me too.” he mutters. “That’s why we have to stop it. Together.”

Allison gulps deep when he bends a little and kisses her. It’s brief and they barely touch their lips, but it’s enough to calm them down. They didn’t realize how nervous they were until now.

They split slowly and keep quiet for a while.

“Let’s go.”

****~~~** **

Klaus is still staring at the dot over Cambodia. He’s been like this for ten minutes; it even reminds him of the times he snorted crack and stared at the wall before the energy came in. Diego gets close softly, without pressuring him. He knows he doesn’t need that right now.

“Cambodia.” his brother mutters. He doesn’t really know what to say. Klaus just shrugs. “Next to Vietnam.”

“Yeah.” he stutters. He scratches his right hand, touching his tattoo. “We just... We just went to the frontier of Cambodia on a mission with our squad, no further. Then, we went back to the country and rested for one week because we didn’t have any food for that mission.”

“You haven’t really talked about your moments as a soldier.”

Klaus smiles with sadness.

“Because... Dave died in the war, remember?” he says with sarcasm and a tight throat and Diego calls himself _so subtle, genius_. “I mean... I don’t really know what to say about it. We basically went to certain, random missions before we were sent to the front lines, in the tenth month.” He has to take a deep breath to continue. “But before that, we still lost friends. I had PTSD attacks in the middle of the night. One night, I literally woke up screaming and Dave took me deep into the woods to hug me.”

Now Diego is the one who smiles with sadness.

“Yeah. The difference between you and me is that you appreciated your partner.”

Klaus lifts an eyebrow. He’s not getting tired of Diego saying that he didn’t appreciate Patch once and over again, but...

“We already talked about it.” his brother says. “You know what? Let me just try to conjure her too, I can-”

“No.” Diego states frowning. Klaus looks at him with pity. “No. I know you can manifest her someday, but after all of this, I just want you to focus on Dave and Dave only. Okay? Period.”

Klaus doesn’t know what to say because his brother has stolen all of his possible options.

“Fine! Fine... I’ll let you know when I conjure him so that you see her again.”

****~~~** **

“Let’s wait here.” Luther says, now both of them standing in a path under the bridge and next to the stream. There’s just a little bit of sunlight in the sky that’s going away anytime soon. It’s almost ten to eight and they remain in silence a little bit. Then, he’s turning to her and, despite he’s even a little bit scared for what she might have hidden from him, he’s willing to listen despite it hurts. “What did you want to tell me?”

Allison opens and closes her mouth several times, trying to put words together. More like words, _courage_. She takes off her sunglasses, so does he, for paying more attention; there’s nobody who likes to walk around the lonely bridge anyway. She clears her throat and looks straight in his eyes. What happened with Five on the highway is a big lesson for her to make a move. It’s now or never.

“I need to confess this.” she says. She’s not stuttering, but she feels emptied out of confidence right now. “It’s... It’s harder than I expected. It’s _big_.” Her hands are even trembling, so Luther takes them. It doesn’t feel any better, but it doesn’t feel worse either. “I should have told you this sooner... but after everything...” Some seconds pass. “God, this is so difficult...”

“Hey.” he mutters. “You can tell me. Anything.” He keeps silent. She has a battle against herself. “I know it must be hard, but it’s even worse if you keep it to yourself. Look at Five.” Allison looks at a bird flying over them with a breeze of wind before looking back at him. “Come on, now. Tell me. Now or never.”

Allison knows that’s true. It’d be even worse if Luther realized about the truth in the middle of the apocalypse, whether they avoid it or not. So, after taking a deep breath, she closes her eyes and opens them back with decision and strength.

“I... I lied to you.” she says with a dry voice; she can’t make her voice even a little bit louder. He tilts his head. This is being repetitive, indeed, with lies being discovered and people getting mad all over again. He still doesn’t get what she means. “I lied to you, Luther. All of this time I’ve been lying to you, always.”

Luther frowns and his head trembles a little bit.

“I don’t get you.”

Allison strokes her teary eyelids just as tears fall down her cheek.

“This...” she gulps. “This happened years after I rumored Vanya, and-”

Luther lets her hands go and frowns.

“You rumored her?” he says between his teeth and with low anger in his eyes. He knows he doesn’t have any right to get mad for something his sister suffered when he also fucked it up with her, but he can’t help it. Allison doesn’t know what to say. “How... How could you?” he hisses.

“I thought you knew because Five knows. Although, I told him that with the notebook, when I couldn’t speak, so...” she says. She shakes her head. She can’t get rid of this by mere technicalities. “But I’m still so sorry, I’ve already said to her I’m so, so sorry for what I did...” She cleans her cheeks and continues. “And, of course, being kind like she is, she forgave me, and no-”

“Which thing happened years after you rumored her?” he interrupts. She scratches her wig, suddenly too hot despite the weather. “Tell me, Allison.”

“I...” She tightens her eyelids with strength before looking back at him again. “I lied to you, Luther...” she hisses with sorrow. “I lied. I... I rumored you too.”

Luther snaps and freezes in his position. It doesn’t take too long before he realizes.

“You rumored me into love you?”

Allison nods, wanting nothing more than curling up on the floor and close her eyes forever.

Luther, however, stays frozen, just like the giant tumbleweed in the highway, where they met their aunt for the first time. There’s a heavy silence for a while; not figuring out plans, not scheming, not racking their brains but with more tension and sorrow.

“When?” he suddenly asks. Allison dares to look back at him and his eyes are indecipherable. “When?” he spits.

“We were eight.” she hisses. “We-We finished the movie we watched in 1997 for our birthday, but I already liked you before that. So, I was... I was a kid that just used her powers for making someone like her.”

Now, Luther is the one who gulps deep, of course, before taking a step back and snapping.

“How...?” he hisses with contained anger. “How could you?”

“I just used my powers, Luther, I-I...” she can barely hear her own voice. “I just used them, I was a little kid... I still don’t have an excuse for what I did, I know-”

“Of course you don’t.” he spits. He can’t believe this. “You rumored _me_ and Vanya? Anyone else from our family you manipulated?” He can’t help with raising his voice a little.

“No! No. I swear.” she hurries saying. “I swear, but I... I also rumored Claire several times-”

“Oh my God...” Luther whispers, shaking his head, disbelieving. It makes sense. That’s why Allison’s ex asked divorce. “No, no way...” he mutters. All these weeks, he thought at least he had Allison’s love by his side. Now, it was a lie all this time. His inspiration is disappearing. “All of your life manipulating people that loved you?” He spits. “All of your life like that? Oh... No, no, no way...”

“Luther...” she says with a tight throat, trying to get closer to him, but he just steps back, making her feel far away despite the closeness. “I’m... I know this isn’t enough, but I... I’m so... so sorry... I’m so-”

“Of course that’s not enough.” he spits. “That won’t be enough for a long time, whether in the afterlife or after we prevent the apocalypse.”

“I’m sorry...” she gets closer and takes his arm. “I’m so, so sorry...”

“You’re sorry...” he says, still in disbelief, and he smiles briefly out of nervousness before coming back to this state of tensed anger. “You’re sorry, you’re saying...”

Luther pushes aside her hand, with such a hurt scorn that she feels like he’s not even there anymore.

“Luther, I-”

“Don’t say anything.” he screams with teary eyes that don’t get out, not like Allison’s. “Not now. No. No way. Don’t talk to _me_. If you hadn’t rumored me, I wouldn’t have locked Vanya in the frigging vault of the Academy out of blind, _fake_ love. You used me for me to like you back romantically. You’ve been keeping this to yourself for almost twenty years... and you’re just telling me this _now_.” He has to keep his mouth shut to gulp and breathe. “No. No way. Allison, if we manage to avoid all of this madness, it’s gonna take more than a few reassuring words for me to trust you again.” He turns around and looks at the stream. Allison gives him space. “Don’t. Don’t talk to me. We have to get this done.”

And, despite Luther being just mere one yard away from distance, Allison has never felt so away from him.

****~~~** **

“It’s 8 pm.” Five claims. The others gather around the table and look at Hazel’s talkie. “They must be already talking to the others.”

“What do we do, in the meantime?” Vanya asks.

“Well, we can talk.” Five says. Everyone sits down, but nobody speaks for a while. “I can’t... I can’t believe dad and the Handler are... _twins_. They don’t look alike that much.”

“Not all of the twins in the world look exactly alike.” Vanya says. “There are non-identical twins.”

That’s right. Five should have known that.

“Yeah.” Ben agrees and puts one of his hands under his chin. “I wonder why they became so distant. Like we’ve said before, something else dad must have done for him to run away, beyond their powers. It’s a big treason.”

“Bigger than we think.” Hazel comments. “If only Luther had asked Trinity if they knew something about Reginald and his treason.”

“Dad obviously knew about the magicians.” Five adds. “That’s why they’re here, helping us right now but not in the fucking apocalypse, when we need it the most.”

“What’s meant to be will be.” Hazel mutters. “I hate that sentence, but it’s true. Maybe... We do something in the apocalypse that they’re not able to do.”

“Like what?” Diego complains. “They’re magicians. Magicians can do any kind of stuff.”

That’s right.

They’re about to prepare dinner when the talkie vibrates and Hazel almost jumps to press the button to take the call.

“We’re here. What happened? Tell us.”

 _“We have them.”_ Luther says, suddenly really serious. _“Bopha and Gonzalo. We told everything and that we need their help in the apocalypse, so Willa said no and left minutes ago.”_

Now, they’re two people more to the gang.

“Okay.” Five says close to the talkie. “Can you take them here?”

 _“They don’t want to.”_ he says. _“We’re in the center, near a tree without leaves. They prefer to be in a public place in case we want to attack them.”_

“That’s fair.” Five says, looking at the others. “Let’s go.”

They prepare themselves with nothing more than the usual, put their jackets on and, after locking the door more than usual, they leave.

They go to the center of the park, where four people are waiting. Apart from Luther and Allison, there’s a short girl with tan skin and simple clothes, who must be Bopha, and a taller guy with curly, dark hair, tan skin too but not like Bopha’s and discrete coat. They’re on the defensive, which, fair.

“Guys.” Luther speaks to his family, who try to behave normal. “These are Bopha,” He points at the short girl, who waves her hand shyly. “and this is Gonzalo.” The guy doesn’t do anything. He’s more on the defensive. Luther turns to the two new people. “Not that we’re distrustful, but we have to check out if you... if you really have powers. This is important.”

“Our safety is important too.” Gonzalo frowns, complaining. “This apocalypse thing you’ve talked us about is pretty big, you know?”

“We know.” Five says. “But, you know by now we’re forty three in the world with powers?”

“Yes, in 1989.” Bopha says with discretion, then she looks at Five up and down. “You don’t look like you were born in 1989.”

“It’s a long story.” Hazel says. “I’m not a Hargreeves, I’m actually helping them.”

“Well...” Gonzalo steps a little bit back. “We’re never too young to die, I think.” He cracks his neck and briefly moves to their eyes and the man shrugs. “What? You didn’t notice my power?”

They think this is a joke and that they’ve taken a random person without powers.

“Notice what?” Bopha asks.

“Okay...” Gonzalo mutters. Then, he turns to the siblings. “Is there anyone who has an object?” Diego takes off his scarf and has it on his hands. “Perfect.” The Spanish guy breathes and, when they blink again, the scarf is on Gonzalo’s hands. Everyone is surprised. Of course, they didn’t realize anytime he runs, he makes it with a breeze of wind when he uses his powers. “It’s superhuman speed, but I call it _Flash_.”

“And you?” Five asks Bopha.

Bopha, still unsure about the situation, takes a step back and separates her feet a little bit. When she raises her hands up the air, they see as a flower is born in the middle of the grass and grows quickly. Bopha grows the flower until it’s one meter tall and, then, she moves her hands so that this little plant starts disappearing until there’s nothing there, like if it didn’t exist.

After they try to reassure the newbies, Luther gets to lift a ten pounds rock easily. It feels good to know that he’s not 100% oxidized. Diego throws his shuriken with ability. After a while, they convince Allison to rumor Gonzalo into taking off his jacket and putting it back; it hurts so much the way Luther stares at her and diverts his glance. Klaus focuses on lifting the same rock of Luther, with his telekinesis. Five teleports. Klaus makes Ben tangible so that he can show his tentacles ( _bentacles_ , as they both call them) and Vanya gets to create wind and lift the rock too.

“Fine.” Gonzalo says after a while, after a silence. “I trust you, I’ll help you, but only because I like to live.”

“Me too.” Bopha says in a low voice. “But if things get fucked up too much, we’ll leave.”

“Deal.” Five agrees. “Let’s meet tomorrow at this same place, then we’ll take you to our place to talk about our plans.”

The two of them leave and the siblings with Hazel walk back to their place. They’re walking calmly. Suddenly, Ben activates his _bentacles_ to drag them behind a corner of a building. Five is about to protest, but he keeps quiet when they see what’s going on in the middle of the road, barely ten yards away, so they stay hidden.

There’s the old man, the master of the magicians, using a whip made out of bright magic to hit the ground. Then, they see better that the whip is not attacking a blond, young man on the ground but protecting him with the magical whip. Then, the old guy turns around, moves his hands quickly and uses a magical shield... against a girl who’s firing a lot of bazooka shoots from her hand, the _Metalbender_ as they called her. Five cusses. He had hoped she’d be dead.

The siblings think he’s handling it okay, but then, the ground under the dude moves and hurts him by choking his throat and pinning down his limbs. The magician is about to counterattack, but someone from a rooftop protects the defenseless boy and the master with magical fields; the enemies are shocked and look up when somebody traps them in a thread made out of magic and fires a wave of yellow energy that makes the attackers unconscious as they fall to the road.

They all look up to the rooftop, where the girl flies down and protects the blond guy and her master.

 _“Trinity.”_ Five thinks, looking at her with wide eyes.

“That’s her.” Luther mutters in the middle of the chaos. Five even forgot that they were there with him.

At the end, the attackers leave quickly and _Trinity_ can already check out if the blond boy is okay, which he is despite his shivering. The old guy takes a deep breath on the ground and shakes the dust off his clothes.

“Well done.” the master tells her while they’re watching if the boy has bruises. She just shrugs. “Thanks for the help.”

“That’s better.” she jokes. Then, they’re both helping the boy stand up. He looks dizzy and confused. “Listen, Daniel. You have to stay here.”

“Why?”

“You’re gonna be helped.” she makes sure. “And you’re going to help people. The Hargreeves.”

The siblings, still in the corner, are astonished.

“Who are those?” the boy asks.

“Gifted people.” she answers. “They need you to stop the end of the world.” The magicians start getting away from him. He still doesn’t know what to do. They still don’t know what to expect. “Now, let’s go.”

The magicians run away from the road and hide under a corner, totally covered with the shadows. When they don’t see them anymore, Five teleports alone to the scared man and frightens him.

“Daniel!” Five screams. “I’m with my siblings, the Hargreeves-”

This Daniel guy quickly puts his hand on Five’s forehead, causing him to see flashes of light and passing out. Luther quickly runs to the road and takes Five in his arms.

“Calm down!” Diego screams to Daniel in a reassuring tone, getting close with the others. Diego reaches Daniel’s hand and the new guy closes his eyes and curls on the road. The other man stays. “Calm down. We’re here, we’re not doing anything. We won’t hurt you.”

Daniel sighs and his hands stop trembling. Luther decides to perform CPR on Five, but he doesn’t wake up.

“He’s alive.” Luther reports with the others surrounding them. The others are worried. This was the kind of stupidity Vanya was scared of happening. “But he won’t wake up...” Time passes and he doesn’t react yet. Diego notices how Daniel tightens his eyelids before opening his eyes and tapping Klaus’ shoulder for him to get away. Klaus does, but without trusting the third new one from the day for hurting his brother. Daniel kneels on the road under everyone’s eyes and touches Five’s forehead, which causes the _little one_ to wake up with a gasp. “Five! You’re okay!”

“What happened!?” Five breathes. He feels so confused right now. Having the others around him in a circle and on the road confuses him even more, just like Ben in 1952.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.” Daniel apologizes while playing with his hands, bowing his head. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I don’t know how to control my telepathy.”

 _Telepathy_.

“That’s really useful.” Diego says getting closer to Daniel in a reassuring tone. “Can you help us, Daniel? Please. So that we all save the world.”

Daniel trembles. He must be one of the two out of the five people that rejected them on Hazel’s call.

“I don’t know if I should trust you.” Daniel mutters. “But after everything I’ve seen today from those wizards... I’ll help.”

“Good.” Five slowly stands up with Luther’s help and shakes his head. Now, his mind feels clearer. “We need you right now, Daniel. Please.”

It’s still 9 pm, so Daniel slowly agrees.

****~~~** **

Daniel feels claustrophobic in such a small place and with other eight people, but Diego reassures him again. Daniel sits on a chair, just like the others but less close than they are to each other. Daniel is in a meditation position and closes his eyes. He, however, opens his eyes after two seconds and his body is trembling slightly. What the hell has he just seen in them?

“I need a _long_ relaxation before figuring out things about sir Reginald.” he stutters while the others listen carefully and patiently. This man looks like he’s going to cry any second... or maybe he’s just like that. They respect him either way. “And, because I have telepathy, I sense that everyone in this room has at least a trauma or two.” The family sighs, some of them bowing their heads with pity. “Who lost a romantic partner here?”

Diego and Klaus raise their hands. Daniel closes his eyes once more.

“Dora... and... No, Eudora and... David.” Daniel reads between his memories. Crap. Powers like telekinesis or telepathy, both involving minds, are indeed a big deal. Daniel could be the key somehow and they’ve bumped into this guy thanks to the magicians. “Who lost a parent?”

“All of us.” Luther reports to the newbie. “Our father and our mother.”

“But... Huh, weird.” the boy moves his hand, as if he were _reading_ them. “I can’t see a mother.”

Diego feels a pang in his chest. That means that Grace doesn’t have a _soul_ in the afterlife.

“I see.” Five mutters. “Do you really need to rest?” Daniel nods quickly, so Five makes the same gesture. He doesn’t like to leave things for later, but they need the newbie in good shape. “We’ll get to this tomorrow, okay guys?”

They nod. This day, just like the others, has been very, _very_ long, and they have a lot of things to do tomorrow.

****~~~** **

When they wake up and have breakfast, the rest of the morning is madness. Hazel even returns from the market with two books about Pilates and yoga and a pamphlet about more yoga. This could also be useful for Klaus and Vanya apart from making Daniel feel safe and relaxed.

Daniel’s life has been good but difficult. Her mother, one of those poor forty three mothers, had him when she was sixteen; she was in her house, taking a shower, when it was the twelfth hour of October 1st in 1989. Her parents didn’t know what was happening, but they supported her daughter and defended her and her baby when the neighbors were curious about a crying baby when neither Daniel’s mother or grandmother were pregnant.

Now, Daniel is lying on the sofa in a comfortable position.

“How do you feel?” Luther asks. Daniel nods slowly.

“I need a couple of minutes before I clear my mind to use telepathy.”

“Okay.” the big guy nods. He doesn’t understand, but he respects it. He stands up and goes to the bedroom, taking off his jacket, where Five is also looking at his clothes in case they need something else.

“Luther.” Allison says getting closer to him and he clearly ignores her. If there’s something worse than anger is ignoring someone, despite Allison being sorry and regretful. “I-I’ve come to say I’m so-”

“Leave me alone.” he states with a strong voice. Allison knows that they need peace and quiet for Daniel, so she bows her head and goes to the living room. He realizes Five was there. “Sorry for that.”

“She told you already, didn’t she?”

“Yes.” Luther mutters, frowning. “Did she tell you?”

“Yes, and before you say anything, I preferred she telling you instead of me, I-”

“No worries.” Luther interrupts. “I know. It’s hard, though. I understand better why Klaus raged to you on the highway.”

Five bows his head and sits next to his brother.

“I’ve never had a sense of defeat. All of my decades alone... I never gave up, you know? Because I knew exactly where I had to go back to. On that highway, I felt defeated for the first time.”

“For real?”

“For real.” Five caresses his own hands, something he used to do in the middle of the destroyed buildings to sleep better. Despite knowing Dolores is just a mannequin, it’s exactly like in that movie where a man gets to an island alone and has a ball with a face as a friend. That character even cried when he lost his friend. “But now, I still feel like we can’t stop.”

“We can’t.” Luther claims. “Not now. Soon, we have to prevent Allison... getting hurt.” He strokes the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe she rumored me into fall in love with her.”

“She did that?” Five asks, surprised. His brother nods. “I mean, I knew she rumored you but not exactly what she did. I’m sorry for you two.”

The big guy doesn’t say anything. He stays standing and rests his back on the wall. He misses his own bedroom, but he will secretly miss this place.

“I was thinking.” Luther asks. “Tonight, I was thinking... if Allison hadn’t rumored me, would I have still locked Vanya in the vault of the Academy?” Five shrugs. He has no idea. Maybe, maybe not. The possibilities tangle themselves. “I...”

“Don’t focus yourself on _what could have been_ , Luther. Like Klaus, with his thing about seeing his boyfriend and me rewinding time.”

“Klaus is not mad at you for that, you know that?” Luther asks and Five nods. “Anyway...” Hazel knocks on the doorless frame and they look at him.

“Hey, can I speak to both of you in private?” he asks softly and they both nod. The three men go to the hallway of that level and make sure there’s nobody listening around. They start muttering just in case. “Okay. Let me get this straight. I think keeping Allison safe isn’t gonna work.”

Five is surprised for the statement, but luckily, Luther does speak. After his speech and encounter with Trinity yesterday, he feels like anything is possible.

“What?”

“Neither putting a bow on Harold’s house for Vanya to remember she hurt her sister.” Hazel claims. “I’ve calculated possibilities, and... there’s 20% of success on saving Allison because we haven’t found that cabin from Harold yet and, by the time we find it, we’re gonna be in a rush.”

“And we’ll have no time to _relax_ Vanya’s copy, her powers.” Five finishes. “I mean.... You’re right, Haz. We have to go to three possible places, it could be the first one we visit...”

“... but it could be also the last one we go to.” Luther finishes. “Making us not arrive in time.”

Hazel sighs and strokes his clothes, now simpler and older than the normal suit from the Commission.

“We have to let Allison’s copy get hurt.” he speaks. “We already know where Harold’s apartment is, you went there already in our original timeline. We can save him.” The brothers keep silent. It would feel a lot better saving Allison’s copy than saving that motherfucker, but... it looks like there’s no other way. “I know you don’t like the idea of Allison getting hurt the way she did, especially you, Luther, but-”

“Actually, I’m mad at her.” he interrupts and Five knows what he’s talking about. “She rumored me.”

“Oh.” Hazel mutters. “But that doesn’t mean you love her any less, whether it’s just a lover or a sibling way.”

Damn. What would they do without Hazel?

“The thing is that we have to save Harold.” Five mumbles. “We have to tell the others the new plan, before we lose time.”

Five is about to turn around to their door, but Hazel takes his arm.

“You know what we have to do, right?” Hazel says. “Like I said earlier, it’s not enough putting a bow right before Vanya’s copy.”

Five tightens his teeth.

“I know.” he says, huffing. Then, he speaks his mind. “We have to get into Harold’s apartment and fight. Against that Vanya. It’s madness, we could be killed, but we have to.”

Hazel nods, so does Luther. Five turns to their door and teleports inside. In the meantime, Hazel asks Luther to go to the market with him before it’s closed.

****~~~** **

Vanya remains strong when Five tells them about the change of plans. It’s hard, but this time, her sister helps her through it. The conversation diverts and she finds courage. Allison tells the others about all of her rumors to people she loves and they unsuccessfully try to reassure her, not after what happened yesterday at the bridge. They also realize that, if tomorrow they have to prevent Harold’s death, there’s no time for meeting Bopha and Gonzalo at those hours.

“So, who should go to stop the other Vanya?” Ben asks after a silence.

“Me, clearly.” Five offers. “I can teleport in fights, tomorrow it’s gonna be hard, there are gonna be fights.” He looks at Daniel, sleeping on the sofa. “What up with him? Is he doing his telepathy?”

His siblings keep silence, uncomfortable.

“He just told us he needs _energy_.” Diego reports.

“Energy!?” Five tries not to scream.

“He told us he needs to _connect_ himself to a big source of energy to read through the memories of someone who’s dead.” Allison says. “And he told us the process is not silent.”

“Silent?”

“There’s obviously a lot of noise when you generate energy.” Klaus comments.

“Tell me about it.” Vanya says.

“The thing is that he needs energy and a big space?” Five asks in disbelief. “That’s crazy.”

“You haven’t learnt anything about these weeks?” Diego protests. “Everything is crazy. We thought we knew something useful, but there are magicians in our multiverses, magicians that won’t help us in the fucking apocalypse. I think we should do what Daniel is asking if that helps us.”

“If we’re in a public space investigating Reginald and Erin, the Commission and its heavy weights will come for us easily.” Five reminds them.

“We know!” Diego protests, standing up from his chair. Five grinds his teeth because he knows he’s right. Goddamn. “We have to do it anyway.”

“He’s right.” Ben says and everyone nods.

“So,” Vanya says. “one or more of us have to prevent Harold’s death while the others help Daniel connect himself to energy.” she summarizes. “My energy source is pretty big, it could be mine.”

“I need more energy.” Daniel interrupts shyly, sitting on the sofa. “I sensed earlier there was someone else with telekinesis?”

“Me.” Klaus says. “But, I still don’t know how to control it, I...?”

“Don’t worry about that.” Daniel says. “I just have to take both of your hands and, then, I share the energy source with you both, you don’t have to do anything.”

“Fine.” Klaus and Vanya nod.

“Now, the thing is...” Five rubs his hands. “Who goes with me to prevent Harold’s death before the future possible battle for figuring out what made Erin so mad?”

They keep silent. Obviously, Daniel needs the only two people from the group with telekinesis, so they both are not going. Good lord, because Vanya didn’t want to come to avoid the death of that bastard. Allison needs to support her sister, so she’s not coming to that either. There aren’t too many options.

“Me.” Diego offers. “I mean, I think I’m more useful in battles than in helping someone get relaxed. And I think Hazel should be with the energy thing, so that they can teleport with the briefcase if the fight gets too dangerous. Luther comes with us too, Five, we have to be more than two.”

“Correct.” Five states. “So, Luther, Diego and I prevent that bastard’s death and the rest of you goes to help Daniel to use his powers. Maybe to a park, around 6 pm tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow?” Diego asks.

“Because tomorrow is when Vanya originally killed him; if we split, the Commission splits too. As Vanya said already, Harold’s death was around that hour. Besides, it’s a good hour because there are people in the park but not too much and the Sun is still there. The matter is: one, two and five preventing his death tomorrow and the others, including Bopha and Gonzalo after we call them, go to the park to help Daniel. There’s definitely going to be a fight after that. We have to keep people safe.”

They shiver all over. More fights. They shouldn’t be surprised.

“After Luther, Five and I prevent Harold’s death, we warn you in talkie and teleport to you, for us to be all together in the battle.” Diego states. “We could also use some-”

There’s a noise outside the window.

Allison and Klaus stand up slowly. Five tells them to keep quiet by putting a vertical finger over his lips. Hazel takes the closest gun to him and walks silently to the window, the middle bedroom, and Klaus follows him. Klaus makes his forearms turn to blue and Ben understands. Ben gets closer to the window in a matter of seconds; he takes out his tentacles and attacks whatever, _whoever_ is outside the window. Ben gets to feel a small body, but then, something burns the skin of the monster under his skin and has to get them back. Ben falls to the ground and Klaus takes him in his arms, making sure he’s okay. Hazel looks outside the window and sees nothing.

“What did you feel?” Allison asks getting close with all of them.

“I felt fire...” Ben mutters. He’s still solid, but he feels confused from what just happened. “And the body squeezing between me before the person got to escape.”

The person, if there isn’t any more keeping their place under surveillance. Which means that the heavy weights know where they are exactly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are they as alone as they expect?  
> [ "Laura Benson": Amelia Rose Blaire ]  
> [ "Mark Jones": Bryan Dechart ]  
> [ "Bopha": Kelly Marie Tran ]  
> [ "Gonzalo": Álex González ]  
> [ "Daniel": Michael Cera ]


	9. 2x08: "Candle in the Wind"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is there anything else hidden between Erin and Reginald?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eighth episode | Song: "Candle in the Wind", by Elton John

_And it seems to me you lived your life_

_Like a candle in the **wind**_

_Never knowing who to cling to_

_When the rain set in_

_And I would have liked to have known you_

_But I was just a kid_

_Your candle burned out long before_

_Your legend ever_ _did_...

**~~~**

The family has been through a lot all of their lives. They’ve been through a lot in order to avoid events throughout the decades (like evil people to save or causing an innocent pregnant woman to die) and they’ve been through a lot more in these last few days. However, it’s right in this moment, the last night right before the night of the apocalypse, that they feel frightened. Despite having had a hard time getting used to something as big as the Academy to something so tiny, they’ve settled down in their new hideout. Now, they’re even close to being in a considerate escale of fear because their little place has been located by the Commission. Or, at least, that’s what they think. It could not be the Commission, but then, who?

Now, Vanya doesn’t fear the apocalypse of tomorrow or what would happen next or how they’re going to stop the destruction of the Moon. She fears not feeling safe in a physical place. Yes, she has her family now, but it will be worse if they can’t even sleep tonight, the night when she hurt her sister in their original timeline. They feel more under surveillance than ever, which leaves on them an unnerving feeling.

When the tension subsides, they’re already sitting down on the chairs around the table without a specific order. They’re out of words until Hazel and Luther return from the market with a bunch of food. Hazel notes the tension.

“What’s going on?” he asks attentively, sitting too.

“The Commission knows we’re here.” Diego reports. Both men turn to him with shock. “I mean...” Diego strokes his face. “... it could not have been a person from them, but... then who? The magicians are supposed to protect us.” Or that’s what they think, again. They keep silent now, for a while. “What should we do?”

Five stops staring at the wall and stands up.

“Well... We...” he mutters. He has to put his hands together for making them stop trembling. “Ben and Hazel should make surveillance. Tonight, our copies must have taken Allison back to the Academy... and she’s being healed... and Harold must have taken Vanya back to his apartment. We’ve been talking about tomorrow... and Daniel needs an open space to focus.”

He doesn’t know why, but he’s having a hard time talking.

“An open space?” Luther asks, frowning. “As in, a mall?”

“As in, a park.” Five reports, looking at Luther. “The one down the street.” He looks at the board this time. It obviously has more things written on it. “Around 6 pm will be fine, no dark, but not too much light. We’ve calculated that it’s better if you, me and Diego go to save Harold at the same hour, the others staying with Daniel in the park. After saving that _shitface_ , I’ll teleport us three back together with you all. Before the possible fight against the heavy weights.”

“Do you need anything special, Daniel?” Hazel asks.

“I... Uhm... I’ll need you to surround me and the two people I feel the energy from.” the innocent boy reports, still kneeling on the sofa. “That’s also for possible people not seeing us. Maybe a secluded corner among a lot of trees...”

Five sighs.

“So...” Five summarizes. “Tomorrow, before 6 pm, we split. Group A, me, Diego and Luther, goes to Harold’s. Group B goes to the park. After we avoid his death, we teleport with you for the battle.”

“How do we even know there’s gonna be a battle?” Diego asks, wondering.

“I mean, we’re gonna prevent the second event.” Luther reminds. “And the last time we _tried_ to avoid one, there was a heavy weight. Imagine what would happen if we get to prevent this. Which are the probabilities, Hazel?”

“Well...” the man thinks. “I’ve calculated it a lot of times.” He takes one of his papers out of a folder and looks at it. “If we split in two, these aces up the sleeve are gonna split too in groups, which is good and bad. Group A is composed of fewer people, but they’re gonna prevent something important, but Five is there so the three can escape by teleporting. But, on the other side, Group B is gonna figure out things about the Hargreeves twins. Around 70% of success for Group A and 85% of success for Group B. They’re good numbers, but the battle after those two things are... low of success.”

“How many of winning?” Allison asks.

“About... 15% of success in the fight.”

They keep quiet for more time. It’s around half past ten in the night and they realize they haven’t eaten something in hours, so they prepare something edible for supper, set the table and sit around it to eat in silence. In silence, until Daniel speaks.

“I need both of the energy sources to rest well.” he says, looking between him and her, who return their looks with the newbie. Newbie to the group because, just like the rest of them, he has been living with powers for almost thirty years. “And I’m noticing uneasy feelings from you that could trigger insomnia,” he says looking at Vanya. “and possible nightmares from you.” he says looking at Klaus. “I can make you sleep in peace.”

“Can you?” Klaus asks, curious.

“Yes.”

That’s nice.

When they do head to their beds, Diego offers to sleep on the sofa while Daniel takes carefully a place next to Klaus. After putting Vanya to sleep, Daniel sits on the bed crossing his legs next to Klaus, who’s lying on his back and crossing his arms over his chest, now with pajamas, barefoot and without sheets over him but at the perfect reach to cover himself whenever he goes to sleep. The new guy looks at his feet.

“What’s that anklet?” Daniel asks carefully, even if he feels the anklet is an important souvenir. Usually, movies represent telepathy as a mere thing of reading people’s thoughts, but actually, real telepathy goes beyond that. It uses memories, connections, relationships among people and emotions too. Daniel’s telepathy uses telepathy itself and empathy.

“Oh.” Klaus mutters, looking at the ceiling. He sees the corpse of a dead mosquito stuck to the ceiling. “Remember I lost someone? Well, that was in 1968. When we went back to 1952, the young version of him gave me this anklet. A souvenir I’ve been able to keep despite these decades...”

Daniel closes his eyes and the man lying on the mattress notices as the newbie’s tips of his porcelain fingers are shining.

“I sense _soulmates_.”

Klaus chuckles. He was kind of agnostic about God, religion and faith, but after being in that infraworld some months ago he can await anything. But cheesy things as soulmates? Those things are from a novel.

“I’m sorry?”

“Not like many people think, soulmates _do_ exist.” he explains. Klaus can’t believe that. “There are two couples of... couples. The first kind is the life partner, the one you want to spend the rest of your life with, have a normal day, children, a house, a cat.”

Klaus gulps.

“Yeah, I wanted to do all of those things with Dave.”

“However, the soulmates, the second type, go beyond that. Soulmates have a kind of love that never withers. That young version of David loved you, right?”

Klaus has to take a deep breath to not break down. Damn, the newbie.

However, in an attempt of making things less corny, Klaus stutters.

“Well, I... His adult version thought I was another person, for not messing timelines and all that jazz, so, his young version didn’t love _me_ exactly,...”

“I think... I think you’re wrong. Did adult David tell you about that person?”

_He did._

“Yeah.” he whispers.

“That means that he loved you even before he met you as an adult... and neither of you knew that.” He pauses. “You both loved each other before you met. As corny as it sounds to you, this is how things are.” Daniel insists, still stuttering. That’s just how he is. He looks like a good guy. “Despite breaking up, Eudora and Diego are life partners. You and David are soulmates.”

_Crap._

Klaus has to wipe his tears off his eyes before they come down.

“Is that useful for me to figure out something?”

“Depends on what you’re looking for.” Daniel hits the nail on the head.

“Whether I look for answers about all of this shit... or answers about myself.”

“Exactly.”

Klaus clears his throat.

“Okay. I get it now.” he says, shaking his hair. “How are you gonna make me sleep?”

“I used a buried memory of Vanya.” he reports. “I sensed a song. She told me it was a lullaby sung by your mother when you were six.”

“Oh.” Klaus remembers. “The lullaby. I barely remember it.”

“I can make you sleep with it too.”

Klaus turns to his left side and looks briefly at the picture of Vietnam from his drawer before nodding and closing his eyes.

**_**[“Candle in the Wind”, Elton John]** _ **

_... Loneliness was tough_

_The toughest role you ever played_

_Hollywood created a superstar_

_And pain was the price you paid_

****~~~** **

Truth to be told, Daniel didn’t make them remember the lullaby and they fell asleep. Daniel just puts his hands on their foreheads, makes them sleep and avoids potential nightmares or insomnia by making them both remember the lullaby.

After insisting, Grace had managed to convince Reginald to give her permission to invent a nice lullaby to make the children sleep in case of emergencies, like daily insomnia or deep sleep paralysis. Being as he was, Reginald took it relatively well, in fact, he gave her some inspiration of chords and lyrics with a movie released in the future, in 2019, the original song named _All is Found_ , from a corny Disney movie, as he told her. Grace finished writing her own lyrics and the next day, before they fell asleep, she made them meet on the sofa of the living room.

“I don’t need anything to sleep!” little Diego had complained, already yawning.

“Come on.” Grace told her son. “This song has a lot of lessons in life. Sometimes cruel, sometimes tough, but the most second-chances granter in the world, in our whole omniverse.” She turned off the lights and lit some candles before sitting on the center of the sofa. Her kids reunited all around her. Luther was sitting on the floor with Allison and Diego. Ben and Five were at both sides of her body without her hugging them both because, once Grace sat down on the sofa, she surrounded Klaus and Vanya with one arm for each kid.

“What’s an omniverse?” little Five asked.

“Oh, sweetie, you’re not prepared for quantum physics.” she told him. “But one day, you will talk about parallel universes and multiverses when the world needs to be saved again. After that, you’re gonna fall in love.”

Five, already being as he is, wrinkled his nose and made puke noises.

“Come on.” she said, cheering them up. “Love is not that bad. Despite its consequences, advantages, disadvantages. If it’s strong, it makes you feel weak and invincible all at the same time. The love you share with people you appreciate is what makes you special.”

“Don’t our powers make us special?” Luther asked.

“No.” Grace denied, looking at him. “Not at all. The love you feel for others and the one you receive from others, that’s what impulses your powers. Not the opposite.” She paused for a brief moment. “This lullaby is about that.”

Vanya was curious.

“Will you sing it for us? Please?”

Grace nodded with affection.

“Okay.” she said. “Cuddle close.” Her children got closer to her. Diego and Allison were touching her leg from the floor and Luther was almost between her limbs. Ben and Five were closer now too. Grace just tightened lightly her hold on Vanya and Klaus. “Scooch in.”

She sat straighter on the sofa when she started to sing, looking at little Vanya first.

**_**When it is the right moment, you’ll know what to do and what to expect** _ **

She looked at Klaus now.

**_**Sleep, my darlings, stay strong now, you decide what is to be found** _ **

Then, she looked at all of them.

**_**There are expectations in yourself, your strength and your deepest weakness** _ **

She looked back at Klaus.

**_**Go beyond your decided answer, but the truth of it will hurt you there** _ **

She stared at all of them this time.

**_**The great danger is yet to come, you have people you share your love with** _ **

**_**But can you brave what scares you most?**_** Grace looked at Klaus. **_**Can you face what the infraworld knows?**_**

She looked at Vanya.

**_**When it is the right time, dear, you will do the very next right thing** _ **

She looked back at Klaus, caressing his left ankle from her position.

**_**Lose whom you have loved the most, later you’ll know what you have found** _ **

****~~~** **

Hazel did surveillance part of the night, so did Diego. Luckily, Ben was like always, doing surveillance _outside_ the building, watching every little movement, so their night is relatively calm. When they wake up, they do it little by little. It’s 8 am, so they spend some time on the three beds, talking to each other. Then, around half past nine, Diego cheers himself up, takes a shower and makes the big question of the day: what the hell are they going to do for the rest of the hours until 6 pm.

“How do we avoid Harold’s death?” Luther asks while putting butter to his bread. That’s a really good question.

“Well, we obviously have to go to his apartment before 6 pm.” Five answers, putting cheap alcohol to his tea after he insisted to Hazel. Klaus takes his small bottle quickly and takes a sip under Ben’s glare. The alcohol feels great, even if it’s just a sip. “We don’t use guns with her. It’s still about Vanya, her copy, so we try to hurt her the least possible.” He points out the two last words. “No guns with her, okay?”

“I’m not comfortable talking about how to hurt my sister.” Diego comments and the original Vanya smiles in a genuine way. “But what about leaving her unconscious and NOT choking her, okay, Luther?”

Allison frowns and Luther bows his head. Klaus chuckles but only because thinking that his brother doesn’t save himself from being a big mouth.

“I know.” Luther hisses. “So, leaving her unconscious before she kills him. How? I mean, she will be raging at that guy with her dangerous powers.”

“It has to be something quick.” Five states, taking a sip of tea because Hazel told him coffee is more expensive. “A hit on her head or something. Heavy enough to leave her unconscious but not too much to kill her.”

They spend the morning trying to know more about Daniel’s powers. They help him with everything he needs, especially when he calls his mother to tell her he’s in a friend’s house for some days (it turns out that Daniel doesn’t have too many friends, but he has one he knows from his entire life). The siblings also tell him about their own abilities as well. They also explain to him how they got _here_. Five going to the future, seeing his siblings dead, spending decades alone, coming back, the _first_ apocalypse, 1952, avoiding and causing things that didn’t happen throughout the decades, 2019 back again, the three events. Daniel doesn’t understand most of the things, but neither do they.

“Who are the magicians? The nameless old man and that Trinity girl?” he asks, resting on the sofa, next to Allison.

“We don’t know anything about them. Just that they can travel through other parallel universes and multiverses, that’s how they’ve been watching us.” Luther answers, from a chair of the table. “To help us through this, except the apocalypse.”

Daniel makes the same expression as them when they heard that.

“Why not the apocalypse?”

“They say if they help us with the end of the world, cosmic monsters will appear and they’ll have to stay just in our world instead of helping others.” the big guy reports.

“So, it’s basically because of _everybody on their own_?”

“Exactly.” Allison chuckles and Luther pretends not to smile. He hides that smile under his hand.

“I mean... I could...” Daniel stutters, doubtful. “I could try reading Luther’s memory about that Trinity girl. To see what she’s hiding.”

Luther stands up and gets closer to the sofa. Allison stands up to warn the others in their bedrooms.

“You could?” Luther asks the boy.

“Yeah...” Daniel stutters. “I could. I-It’s basically jumping from one mind to another inside a memory.”

They all get closer to the table and Luther sits with Daniel on the sofa face to face. Daniel explains that it’s all about jumping from Luther’s mind and, then, going to Trinity’s mind through his memories.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.” the newbie nods, sighing deeply. “Please, Luther, close your eyes.” He closes his eyes and Daniel does the same thing. Just like last night when they saw him on the road, his fingers shine when he touches Luther’s forehead. Allison is worried. Klaus is uncertain. Ben is willing to jump into danger any time. “I’m gonna get into that memory, okay? When did it happen?”

“Yesterday, just a little bit of minutes past eleven.”

The boy concentrates while having his hand on Luther’s forehead the softest way possible.

“Ready?” Luther nods again. “O-Okay, here we go.” Two seconds pass and the others see as Daniel tightens his eyelids when he enters his mind. It’s hard going through his memories, even if that process lasts like less than a second, but he pushes through it. Then, he stops trembling, completely frozen. Now, they’re worried about Daniel. “Okay.” Well, at least, he’s breathing. “I see the girl walking around, talking to you, Luther, I... I see her explaining the multiverses, the names of gifted children, the... The apocalypse...” Daniel takes a deep breath. “Okay, n-now I’m inside, I’m gonna get inside her mind, okay?” Luther nods once more and the boy focuses again. His fingertips shine brighter. They stay still a little bit longer, just navigating through his soul. Five is attentive, wanting to know more. Suddenly, they all notice how Daniel clenches his jaw and his entire body. They thought a body _clenching_ wasn’t possible. “Light...” He mumbles with pain. “More light... Fire... No! NO!”

Daniel and Luther scream at the same time. The new guy has such a jumpy reaction that he falls to the floor and Luther stands up, putting his hands over his head. Despite everything that happened yesterday, Allison stands up and runs to Luther, who accepts the gesture while the others get closer too. Vanya and Diego get close to Daniel on the floor.

“What happened?” Vanya asks.

“No...” Luther starts explaining. Hazel doesn’t know what to do, so he kneels down next to Daniel too. “I... I saw a lot of things in _one second_. I saw sorrow and hatred, fire, more magicians... That woman...” He opens his eyes without tears that fall. He doesn’t feel confused but filled with determination in his own words. What the hell did he see? “That woman... That woman is nuts.”

Five shivers. He didn’t expect that.

“Well...” Klaus coughs while stroking Luther’s back. “Good, good thing that she’s not gonna help us in the apocalypse, right?”

“That woman...” Daniel whispers, curling up in the wall with Hazel’s hand on his shoulder. “We better not bump into her again. Neither into none of the magicians.”

The others nod carefully, except Five. He doesn’t know what to think. He wanted to know so many things about Trinity.

They make Luther and Daniel sit on the sofa again to make them rest a little bit, especially to the telepathic man, still uneasy about what he saw. And they need his full potential for this afternoon.

**_**[“Bohemian Rhapsody”, Queen]** _ **

_Mama, just killed a man_

_Put a gun against his head_

_Pulled my trigger, now he's dead_

_Mama, life has just begun_

_But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away_

****~~~** **

It’s 3 pm and they’re eating, again, in silence like the millionth time in the past few days. As time passes, it feels like an eternity but also like a bullet shooting through its barrel.

They try to have normal conversations as much as possible in order to take tension out of their minds, especially with Daniel. Diego and Vanya promise each other to re-watch Sam Raimi’s _Spiderman_ because they both don’t remember it. Klaus and Allison promise each other to go shopping as soon as this is over. The poor Daniel can’t stop creating hang-nails, as Vanya has started doing since the missions throughout the decades began. She has been trying to cut that habit out.

Ben asks Daniel if he can use his own powers to soothe himself, but not when the person has telepathy, a lot less with himself. He has never experimented with his abilities this way. Daniel’s journey with them all started when he was walking to college yesterday evening and the master of Trinity bumped into him and warned him he was going to be killed by the Commission. Obviously, Daniel didn’t believe it, but the heavy weights began to attack them and the fight lasted hours, both of them running from them around the zone and that’s how the family found him right before Trinity joined to help her master.

“The family, you say?” Daniel notes. “I thought Hazel was just helping you.”

Ben shrugs.

“It was like that at the beginning.” he reports. “It was hard-it’s been hard at the beginning, we didn’t fully trust him, but he’s been proving once and again that he’s a good person despite everything he’s done in the Commission.”

“He _was_ in the Commission.” Daniel claims with a doubtful voice, as in a question tone. “But so did Five. What a family.” Daniel says with sadness and Ben nods. What a family, hell yeah. “Not to offend you... but I’m glad sir Reginald didn’t find me.”

“You should be.” Ben says. “I’m glad to have my family as it turned out to be, but you should be glad. The other thirty six children should.” Allison sits next to them, on the chairs. “How are you feeling, Ally?”

“Not used to nicknames.” she comments. “Oh, Hazel has mollycoddled us with that.”

“We were just talking about that sir.” Daniel says. “As far as can be expected, he seems nice.”

“ _Seems_ nice? As in you sense that with your telepathy?” she asks and the newbie nods. “I hope we can fix this thing up. I’d like him to go back to his partner. She’s waiting for him in 1952.”

“She’s okay.” Daniel makes sure. “I don’t know her... and I haven’t been in sir Hazel’s head, but she’s okay.”

Hazel, who was listening in the entrance hall, checking his guns, can’t help but smile out of relief. Moments later, Five tells them all to reunite in the living room around the table. They sit down in pure silence and, then, he starts speaking.

“This one’s gonna be tough.” he comments, looking at the floor. “This event and this mission are gonna be rough, no lies. We won’t be prepared for certain things. But we have to think and act fast. Group B has to be attentive to everything that’s happening around the park.”

“I can guard.” Hazel offers. “I mean, around the park rather than the corner you will be in.”

“Yeah, and, I’ve been thinking about the details.” Five is saying. “And after we save Harold, we’ll take both him and Vanya to the hospital. She has to see he’s alive and, while he’s there, he won’t be able to get killed by any of the copies.”

“Harold will try to run away.” Vanya interrupts. “He will try to get me... my copy, to convince me to run away. How do we solve that?”

“Easy.” Daniel says. “Tell the doctors of the hospital his true name, so that they see all of his criminal record. The police will arrive in his room in a matter of seconds.”

They’re surprised. They haven’t thought about that.

“That’s great, Daniel.” Five congratulates by clapping his hands together. “Now... I recommend that Group B doesn’t call Group A until further notice. It’s just in case we’re in the middle of stopping Vanya and all that jazz.” They reflect on it for some minutes. It’s half past five. They should really get going to their missions. Five gets closer with his chair and bends his body just a little bit. “Collaboration one hundred percent between each other, got it?” The others nod. “Fine.” He sighs deeply. “Let’s go.”

Group A gathers guns and puts them in a bag; they won’t use them with the event, but when they get together with Group B, who’s going to go to the park and settle down there. As hidden as possible and also with guns and other useful tools. Group A dresses with the darkest clothes they find. On the other side, Allison dresses with discrete clothes, Klaus with no shirt, white jacket decorated with bright purple laces, purple belt, white pants and white ankle boots accompanied by the anklet with the half of the heart and Vanya with long, gray shirt and black pants.

They don’t say much to each other when they part and Daniel is okay with that because he knows it’s not needed. They know they want to say to be careful to each other, but they know that. Luther is the only one who says it out loud before they walk away from each other and go to their goals.

****~~~** **

“Is it there?”

“It is.”

Luckily, after a lot of time travel throughout the years, Five hasn’t forgotten where Harold’s apartment was. The disadvantage is that they have to hide in alleys several times because there are people that could see them with dark clothes, scarves that act as ski masks and a suspicious bag with them. They have found Harold’s portal after two minutes of teleporting through the neighborhood. Five looks around them before taking his brothers’ hands again and teleporting to the corresponding level. They make sure nobody is looking before getting close to Harold’s door and sticking their ears, in order to listen if something’s happening.

After a while, they listen to Vanya’s copy talking to Harold but not loud enough to hear it clearly. They’re astonished. It’s her. It’s Vanya’s copy. They try to be quick in assimilating that information.

“This is our signal.” Five whispers. They leave the bag on the floor and they sigh at the same time. “We leave Vanya unconscious, we take them both to the hospital and we let the doctors know his real name, got it?” His brothers nod. Nervous, even frightened, but willing to do anything for them to have a win for the close apocalypse. Five rubs his hands. This is madness, this is utterly crazy. This could go totally right... or totally wrong. No medium point. They have to _jump_. They listen to his voice louder and Vanya’s copy clearing her throat.

“... and I love them.”

They can feel her desperation and her need to be with them because, by now, she was realizing how much she needed them. That makes Luther gulp deep. He has to stroke the bridge of his nose to subside his shivering.

They hear Harold’s voice louder and a lot of noise inside. Vanya must be already attacking him. Five clears his throat.

“Okay.” he whispers with ambition. And with Imagine Dragons’ song in his head. Whatever it takes. “Let’s go!”

Five takes his hands and teleports the three of them inside.

They land in the center of the living room and, when they get used to the ambient, Harold, floating in the middle of the air because of Vanya’s powers, glances at them with desperation.

“What...?” the bastard gets to mutter with a stammering throat. He doesn’t understand anything but not like he has time to concentrate on them when he’s being lifted up in the air.

Just when Luther grabs a random pillow to knock her (the first thing he sees), Vanya turns around when hearing them and makes a wave of energy so that they fly away with strength. Luther’s head is hit by the ceiling fan that falls, so Diego looks around and picks random knives that were flying around before they got inside and tries to throw the _safe_ part at her, the handles of the knives, but she creates her own safe bubble. She turns around again and lifts Harold in the air again and focuses on his throat, making him pant.

Five reacts by grabbing a heavy, metallic broom, teleports next to her and tries to hit her, but Vanya shoots energy at him, making him fall to the floor.

“Two!” Luther screams to Diego, who looks at his brother and accepts the iron teapot that his brother throws at him. Diego runs behind Luther, who goes to Vanya, who attacks him. However, Diego takes advantage for her concentration to Luther, jumps over his body and hits her head with the teapot with all of his strength. It’s Vanya’s copy, technically not her sister, but the sound of her head being hit still hurts Diego.

Vanya falls to the floor, unconscious. Harold falls too but is trying to recover his breath. The original brothers try to recover quickly.

“Oh, god...” Five says, stroking his hurt back while standing up. He huffs and walks slowly to Harold’s shaking body. He’s not unconscious, but he’s in shock. “We have to leave a note and a photo.” Diego stands up, goes to the door and closes it after getting the bag back. He gives a polaroid to Five, who takes a picture and puts it on the floor, next to a little bit of blood Harold spit when Vanya was choking him. Five writes the note. _Harold Jenkins_ and an arrow pointing at the photo next to it. The note and the picture are close to the sofa. “The copies are gonna come here to check if Vanya was fine. In our timeline, they checked out that the fake eye was, indeed, from him. This photo and the blood will help them get to the same conclusion than we did, that the eye belongs to him.”

“But they’re gonna ask themselves who took the photo.” Luther reminds.

“Doesn’t matter.” Diego says. “They will have the photo, the note and a sample of blood they can give to Grace so that they see the eye is from Harold.”

“Isn’t Five copy gonna still pursue the apocalypse because he doesn’t get to know if Harold is still alive or dead?”

Luther’s question makes Five freeze. Fuck.

“Shit.” he says, standing up at the same time with his brothers and walking away from the body. Five still pursuing the apocalypse wouldn’t be a problem because he’d realize that the eye belongs to him and that Vanya causes the end of the world, it wouldn’t have to matter if Harold’s dead or alive... right? Luther takes the copy of Vanya in his arms and goes to touch Five, who takes Harold’s hand. Luther and Five are going to take the copy and the bastard to the hospital. “We’ll be right back, Diego. Stay here.”

Diego stays there when they leave him alone. They’re supposed to leave Vanya recovering from the hit and Harold being healed. Six minutes pass when they appear again, just his brothers.

“Good god, you worried me. How did it go?”

“Well, at the beginning the cops didn’t believe us, but we told them Harold’s identity.” Five says, rubbing his hands. They’re close to the window. “They’ve put Vanya’s copy in the infirmary because she’s only unconscious, but they’re giving oxygen to Harold right now. The cops are gonna talk to him afterwards. He’s in real problems, the dude’s gonna be grounded.” He sighs and takes his brother’s hands once more in all of these days. “Ready for the big battle?”

Just when his brothers nod at the same time, the window behind them is broken by a quick bullet that fires right at Five’s shoulder, making him scream out loud and fall to the floor. Luther pushes Diego to the floor too, covering them with his big body, so that they’re harder to spot. More shots start getting inside the apartment. Luther reacts fast and takes Five’s other shoulder to go to the door with Diego, the three of them running downstairs to get the hell out of there by the emergency gates of the building and escaping through the alleys. Luckily, the photo and the blood from Harold are still where they left them. Unluckily, they’ll take a whole lot longer in getting back to the others because Five is hurt and bleeding.

****~~~** **

They find a good spot among tall trees and dense bushes that’s about twenty squared yards, half the size of their hideout in danger. Just in case, they carry with them two bags: one with guns and the other one with clothes, food, money, matches, medicine, the pic of Vietnam and water. Daniel immediately sits on the center, on the grass, and the two _sources of energy_ sit in front of him. The three of them try to make their body relaxed and clear their minds as Hazel gets out of the bushes to guard the zone. Allison makes sure everything is fine with them and Bopha, Gonzalo and Ben are inside the circle but looking outside of it.

“Fine...” Allison mutters, stuttering but one hundred percent sure. “We’re _definitely_ not gonna be alone in the fight, but we’re gonna be in this process.” She looks reassuringly to Daniel, who looks utterly nervous but sure at the same time. “You know what to do here, right?” Daniel nods. “And what to do with my siblings?”

“Right.” the telepathic man nods and cracks his neck. “I’ll try to keep Klaus and Vanya as calmly as possible when we share energy.”

Allison bends a little and takes Vanya’s trembling hand. Her eyes are uncertain and focused at the same time. She’s not sure about this at all, but she’s not spacing out anymore. She’s present in the moment.

“I trust you.” she tells. Her sister’s eyes are indescribable now, like she didn’t expect that. “We all trust you. We’re gonna handle everything else, you just, you just focus on your energy, got it?”

Vanya nods and receives her sister’s kiss on her head. Allison gets away but just about five yards, still in the circle. Bopha and Gonzalo are attentive.

“Klaus!” Ben yells and Klaus stops spacing out with a leafy tree to look at his brother. “Are you fine?”

Klaus’ mind snaps and he shakes his head.

“I am.”

Daniel shakes his head slowly and takes Klaus’ and Vanya’s hands with strength but not brutality; one hand per person.

“Okay.” Daniel stutters. “First... We have to inhale as deep as we can and, when you start to feel a _tickle_ in your stomachs, you exhale and, then, the rest of your breathing has to do that as slow as possible.” Both of the siblings nod. “The tickle means that I’ve managed to reach your energy.” They nod again. “Fine. Let’s close our eyes.”

The three of them do it.

Daniel bows his head just a little bit. Allison guesses he’s starting to do _it_.

The three of them inhale deeply as Daniel tries to reach their energies. Seconds later, the wind is just a little bit faster and the small stones of the land shake, meaning that the two telekinesis are being softly _invaded_. Klaus and Vanya sigh and the three of them exhale. The two energies feel a tickle, meaning that their sources are being shared. Klaus feels himself in a different dimension and Vanya feels another kind of connection with the breeze of wind around her.

“I’m gonna...” Daniel stutters out loud. “I’m gonna jump into a random memory in order to jump from one mind to sir Reginald’s...”

And that’s all that poor Daniel can mutter. He tries to yell something else, but they can’t listen.

It’s basically the same thing he tried to do with Luther with more spectacle.

It’s harder than Daniel expected because their memories from their father are... not good. However, the newbie pushes through it. After a while, Daniel gets to open a passage, a bridge to Reginald’s mind and the two siblings see what he can see.

They see a party with a Victorian ambience and soft lights where a beautiful man in his thirties, dark hair and tall, is dancing with a woman around the same age, dark coat, curly, short blonde hair, pretty, sassy, intelligent and looking at the man with lovely eyes. Then, the memory is cut by another one that shows a very tall man with blonde-white hair and not much chubby with a wrench in his hand, building a weird machine, the one that killed his wife and gave his children twins powers they didn’t want. The rest of the memories are blurry; they _see_ screams of hatred, they see a lot of blood and, then, a lot of lights. Then, darkness.

Klaus, Vanya and Daniel scream at the same time.

They cover their eyes, get away from each other and drag on the cold ground. Ben gets closer to Vanya, Allison to Klaus and they kneel next to them to reassure them. Allison ignores the vibration of her talkie in the pocket of her red jacket.

“What happened?” Ben questions.

“A dance...” Daniel reports, trembling all over again. “... a couple, screams... blood... lights...” He shakes his head, sitting down again. “It-It was too blurry.”

They can’t even catch a breath for their next movement.

“Let’s try again, don’t we?” Klaus’ question leaves his siblings in shock and he just shrugs. “We... That was painful... but we have to figure out more about them both to... to make Erin feel less powerful in the apocalypse. She’ll probably come to the theater herself if we arrive there with more than seven people.”

“He’s right.” Allison complains, stroking her sister’s cheek. “I mean... Are you okay, Vanya? For doing it again.”

“I already have the connections to their energies.” Daniel claims, rubbing his eyes. “I only need to _remain_ connected, for not losing the bridge of memories.”

Klaus nods and takes Daniel’s left hand with both of his. As the newbie has just said, Klaus already feels like he’s sharing his energy.

Vanya is about to get closer too, but Hazel runs towards them inside the circle.

“The weights...!”

The shot of a bazooka is fired just at the limit of the circle. Everyone flies through the air. Vanya reacts fast enough to make a shield for Hazel and Allison, the closest ones to her, but Bopha is hurt and Gonzalo has run away in time. On the other side, because of the fact they were both connected right before the incident, Daniel faints and Klaus flies away until a big rock hits the crown of his head.

****~~~** **

Luther can’t ignore the way Five screams anytime they need to climb a ladder of the buildings to get away from the shooters. With Five in this state, they can’t teleport. Diego can divert the shots away from them but not too much longer, just when a new wave of guns come in. The shots are precise; probably fired by the _Metalbender_.

After a while, Luther has to take Five in his arms and he can’t ignore either the way his body trembles.

“I’m... cold...” Five manages to mutter. Which means the bullet has hit something important.

He needs medicine urgently, but they can’t seem to take a breath and going calmly to the hospital when the Commission is rounding the dead-end they’re cornered in. They couldn’t just escape through the open streets and avenues because there could have been people. This was the only way: through the alleys.

However, Diego kicks a plank of the wall of the wooden alley and makes a hole where they run inside immediately. They run for what feels like an eternity, but they’re actually fifteen minutes. They turn around the millionth corner and there’s an open path of gravel next to a small lake. This place is a large park with a strange, abandoned building at the other side, the lake, some benches and trees. There isn’t anybody. Diego turns to Luther.

“We can make a diversion. You run between the bushes with Five and I’ll swim under the water. We’ll reunite close to the entrance of that building.”

Luther nods despite not wanting to leave Diego alone. Diego runs to the lake and jumps into the water. He’s the Kraken, he’s going to be fine.

In the meantime, Luther runs with his small brother between the bushes of the property. He realizes the property is pretty big, an old, abandoned building is on the other side of the old, wide fence. The building is barely five yards away from the fence; there’s probably a hole they can escape through. He arrives where they agreed and, seconds later, he sees as Diego gets out of the water, takes a deep breath and reunites before the Commission keeps shooting a new wave of bullets.

Luther and Diego keep running. They hear something behind the bushes and, right away, something shoots to Luther’s arm, so he falls with Five to the floor, making them both scream in pain. Luther can resist his wound perfectly for a while thanks to his powers, but Five has already one on the shoulder; and now, a second one because he’s fallen to the ground, hitting his head.

The abandoned building, their only possible safe spot, is fifty yards away; the bullets are still being fired and a moving land is getting close.

****~~~** **

They run with Daniel’s and Klaus’ unconscious bodies to a dead-end alley where a few people have seen them on their way here, but those people think it’s not important in their lives, just some criminal freaks running away from the police (which is not too far away from reality). Gonzalo gets with them and quickly moves some big trash cans to cover them better. Bopha gets to grow big trees out of nowhere to hide them completely, also for covering the windows that people could look through. Ben, with Klaus unconscious, is not there anymore.

“What happened with Klaus?” Hazel screams, with his ears beeping from the bazooka.

“His head hit with a rock.” Allison screams back. She takes stuttering, deep breaths under the shadows of the tall buildings around and the darker and darker sky. Then, she checks out if Vanya’s fine, but she’s worried utterly about her brother. “He’s breathing, but his heartbeat is slow, so slow...” She gulps with dry saliva and takes Klaus’ hand. “ _Where_ is he?”

****~~~** **

Klaus opens his eyes.

Not fast, no way. But slowly than ever. It even reminds him of the first hangovers he slipped in when he was young, a few weeks after Ben had died.

Klaus looks up because of the position he is in. The sky is cloudy, but the clouds are brighter than ever. At the same time, he can’t see much of them because of the leaves of the trees. Then, he looks around, still in that lying position on the itchy grass.

There are tall trees that are barely possessed by leaves on their trunks but only on their tops, gray leaves, just like the same color of the trunks and the clouds instead of blue. Everything gray. He stirs on the grass and looks down, next to his body. The grass is gray as well.

He knows exactly where he is. And, despite this, he’s never been more confused. Quantum physics with Five is relatively easy compared to this.

He sits on the ground little by little, as slow as the way he opened his eyes. He sighs with the same pace and rubs his eyelids. Everything is exactly the same as the first and last time he was here, except, there’s a constant breeze of wind now, singing deeply...

_“Klaus, come.”_

He stands up faster and looks all around. He’s still confused, but he’s filled with determination. Now more than ever.

He doesn’t know exactly what he’s looking for at all, but he’s willing to try.

And, just like in those old moments before the hangovers, he feels as if his veins were filled with adrenalin. Something’s different. He doesn’t know what, but then, he realizes he was connected to Daniel’s powers, his telepathy, before being knocked out.

He has a chance to find answers. He has the bridge of memories.

Klaus sighs deeply and walks for a while, not knowing where he’s going. Absolutely no idea. Life is not a Disney movie or a modified song your mom sings to you to sleep. That was just a lullaby. This is life, well... _this_ is the Infraworld. It’s not life, technically. Maybe he can-

No. He needs answers for all of them.

Klaus keeps walking and realizes that, apparently, there’s no teenage-God this time. Everything and nothing is different from the last time, but then again, he has only been here once. Maybe rules always change every time you enter.

He feels more scared and more determined than ever. His hands are trembling, his heartbeat is fast, but his mind is focused on walking. Just walking. He’ll get to the answers sooner or later.

Thanks to the bridge Daniel granted with his abilities, it feels kind of... nostalgic. Not only because he has been here already, but because... that whispering, singing wind is like telling directions.

_“Klaus, come.”_

He listens to the familiar, female voice again. Now, he knows where he’s going.

He sees something behind a tall, gray bush. He walks there fast and sees a blue light shining softly, just like his own powers. Weird. That shiny ball is the only thing with color in this place (the blue sphere and the purple laces of his clothes). He tries to be subtle with this. He bends slowly to touch it and his mind shows him the prank he did with Ben in order to blame Diego for breaking one of Reginald’s shelves. Klaus opens his eyes again and the blue light has moved twenty yards away.

He chases it.

Klaus runs and gets to touch it again, but this time it shows him how Grace introduced him to the world of crop tops when he was ten. The memory finishes and the blue light moves fifty yards away, each time further. This time, in this spot, the light shows him the exact moment after he and Dave kissed for the first time in the disco.

How they split and, after a while, they just chuckled at each other and decided to go back to the tent because they were _tired_ , when they actually just wanted to be alone, cuddling, given that the rest of the squad were still partying.

But, no. No. He needs to look for _their_ answers.

He needs to figure out why would Reginald run away from that universe to theirs.

The light gets away from him once more and won’t stop moving forward. In fact, it flies away so fast that Klaus can’t see it anymore through the bushes, no matter how fast he runs. After a while, he stops running to take a deep breath. He breathes deeply while bending and resting his hands on his knees. He feels desperate. Where is that thing?

He keeps walking at a quick pace where the blue light has left. He won’t find a trace of it for a while. He takes a deep breath once more and closes his eyes briefly before screaming out loud.

“Reginald?”

He keeps walking. He feels like he’s been here for an eternity and one second at the same time, but he keeps walking.

At the outline of that place, Klaus starts seeing the shape of the smallest house in the world, so his feet are faster. He hasn’t seen this little house in his life, but he saw a flash of it in the memories Daniel made them have.

He gets closer to the house and opens the wooden door. He smells like dirty and sweat inside. He gets in, closes the door and kneels down on the floor when he sees broken objects all over the living room and blood on the floor. Klaus can see that the blood is gray, but the broken objects are in real life colors. He bends down to the first object, a black coat, and touches it. The memories arrive in his mind as strong as lightning.

He sees black first.

“So, dear lady.” a deep voice mutters and he can see (in third person) that the person is tall and has dark hair, the guy that was with the woman in the Victorian party. This man takes her hand despite her blonde and a longer hair by then, still having her coat. The same coat she wore on the deserted highway. “If you’re studying Arts, what are you doing at a party for scientific research?”

The woman smiles, sassy and blushing.

“My father is building a machine that I don’t understand for his association.” she jokes, stroking her hair and dancing close to the man. “Not logical at all. I’m here to support him, he’s going to present it tonight.”

The man takes her hand and makes her spin around.

“How interesting.” he hums. “What’s your name?”

She chuckled.

“Erin Hargreeves.” she says. “Yours?”

The man chuckled too.

“Luther Halliday.”

The memory ends.

Klaus gasps, rubs his eyes and takes a moment to have the ability of a normal sight... and to have courage. He doesn’t like where this is going. However, he needs to move on. Klaus then moves and bends to the next object, a wrench covered in blood.

Klaus touches it.

A chubby man in his fifties with blonde hair and a wrench covered in blood behind him is holding the dead body of a woman between his arms. His eyes are empty. Then, two young people in their thirties, a man and a woman, are staring at the body in shock. Klaus notices that they’re in a dark room.

Their terrible grandfather. Their dead grandmother in his arms. Reginald and Erin.

The memory speeds up and shows the twins sitting on a bench and screaming but not at each other. Reginald is staring at the grass and Erin is utterly furious, moving her hands.

“FUCK!” she hisses with tears in her eyes. “It’s all his fault!”

Reginald nods.

“It is.” he mutters. He clenches his fists. “But there’s nothing we can do, Erin. Mom is dead, one month ago of that.”

Erin stares at her twin.

“There’s a way to stop him, actually.” she states really serious. Reginald rubs the bridge of his nose. First the machine, then their mother being dead because of that thing and now this? “We have powers now because of that same machine. We can kill him.”

Reginald shakes his head in confusion.

“What are you saying?” he snaps. “Erin, wake up, killing dad isn’t gonna bring mom back up.”

“Is it?”

Klaus knows that she’s talking about. How the Handler has been trying to make the apocalypse always happen, so that they save their mom and kill their dad. And, in the memory, that’s exactly what she tells to Reginald, who agrees on the plan of going back in time together in order to prevent the machine being invented: the mother lives and, then, they kill their dad by also saving their multiverse from the monsters... all of that by causing the apocalypse. They also agree on not telling their dad about their powers.

The memory ends.

Klaus goes to the third object. An umbrella covered in blood.

He’s somehow frightened by this one, actually scared to shit. He listens to the whispering wind again, just as one sentence of Grace’s lullaby comes to mind.

**_**“Go beyond your decided answer, but the truth of it will hurt you there......”** _ **

Klaus takes a deep breath, bites his lip with determination and nods before moving and touching the umbrella.

The memory starts.

Inside a big, old house, there’s their terrible grandfather (because what’s worse than having a horrible father than a horrible grandfather) talking to Reginald, who’s still in his thirties.

“What did you want to tell me, son?”

His father’s father seems less cold but more lethal at the same time. Reginald is freaking out.

“I wanted to talk to you about the Temps Association.”

AKA, the Temps Commission.

Erin shared her powers with _a_ Commission before being betrayed by one of her family.

“What about it, son?”

“I… I haven’t told you this because Erin was pushing me over and over again, with but... I...” He somehow finds courage. “She planned going back in time and causing an apocalypse by destroying the machine, for saving mom and then killing you.” The father seems astonished but not surprised. “And, and before you ask, we were going to do it with the powers the machine accidentally gave her.”

 _Her_.

Apparently, Reginald was a total prick both in his universe and in their own. Klaus wants to scream.

That’s the treason, that’s how he betrayed her, by saying only Erin had powers. Reginald then says that he changed his mind about the twins’ plan because there were few possibilities of success for making an apocalypse happen to save their mom. But _that_ kind of treason feels like a pang in his chest. He understands how Erin must have felt. He hates having her as an enemy, but he understands.

Klaus listens as a door behind the father and the son sounds. Reginald tells his father he’s going to have a look. Klaus thinks it’s going to be Erin and that’s how she must have realized about the treason. Klaus’ heart sinks when he sees it’s none other than Luther Halliday.

Luther, Erin’s lover, runs away immediately through the dark park at midnight and so does Reginald, trying to explain it to him. Luther is at the edge of a road, where Regi also stops running. They face each other. Erin’s lover promises that he’s going to warn her about the treason and that nothing’s going to stop him, so Reginald returns to the forest… and gets inside _this_ same house, hiding behind a corner. Luther must have realized he needed a phone to call his love, so he goes to the house too.

Just when Luther is taking the wall phone to call Erin, Reginald ambushes him by hitting him on his head with a metal stick of the chimney. Now Luther is the one who tries to talk things, but Reginald keeps fighting. Luther is taller than him, but the blond man gets to grab a dark coat and strangle him, leaving him defenseless and throwing objects to the floor in the process. Then, Reginald tries to hit his neck with a wrench, but the man under his waist shakes and the object hits his temples, leaving him way weaker.

Luther shakes more and throws an umbrella stand. Reginald takes advantage, grabs a black umbrella and hits Luther in his head. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven and forty three times.

Reginald freezes in his place, still holding the umbrella, when the door cracks open and Erin is looking to her twin and the corpse under him. Reginald gets away from him and walks to his sister.

“Erin...” he mutters with desperation. “Let me explain...”

That’s when Erin snaps and uses the energy from her hands to attack. The memory speeds up. Reginald has managed to escape with his father to a secret bunker. Erin returns to the little house, gets inside and hugs Luther’s body with blood all over the place.

The memory ends.

Klaus tightens his eyelids. Then, he curls up on the floor and feels a terrible pang in his chest with a pit in his stomach.

God. The way her face fell down and her horrified features when she returned and cuddled the corpse of her love. The same way he reacted when he was holding Dave’s body in the front lines.

Klaus buries his face in his knees. Later, one millisecond or a lifetime, he manages to clean his tears, get out of the house and walk away.

Now, he needs to ask Reginald why he would do such a thing as killing Luther Halliday. This is not over.

****~~~** **

Allison feels a pang in her chest when Klaus’ heartbeats stop for one second... and, then, he starts to breathe again. They all sigh out of relief and keep their little spot under surveillance.

“This is terrifying...” Bopha grinds her teeth. “God, this is madness...”

“We know...” Vanya mutters, still on the floor next to Klaus’ weak body. She sees as Hazel finishes preparing his guns and she looks at him. “Let me go with you.”

Before Allison can protest, they both stand up fast.

“I mean, Van, are you… are you sure?”

Vanya, not even fifty percent sure, nods and follows him to the closest and the only accessible roof. They get up there and Hazel starts firing anytime there’s any of the shooters who tries to even look at the dead-end. Vanya looks all around her. The shooters are not getting tired anytime soon. The people from the streets are running away. The police will arrive anytime soon as well.

“I’ll fire energy to anything evil that moves.” she makes sure. And, as she promised, she makes that. After focusing for some seconds, she creates streams of energy that eliminate shooters from other rooftops. This will probably be on the news, but luckily, her face is well covered thanks to Diego’s advices in discretion. She reminds herself to thank him later.

****~~~** **

“Come on, guys...” Luther hears Diego saying in the background. Luther’s ears are beeping. He can’t react despite the little slaps Diego is giving him on his head. “That building’s not too far...”

He makes Luther realize his surroundings by slapping him this time, so he stands up as fast as possible despite his arm hurting so much and takes Five’s right shoulder when Diego takes the left one. Five complains, but he pushes through it and starts moving his legs between the two taller men.

The shots continue while they’re running to the entrance of the building. They can even feel them right at their feet. Diego receives one on the foot, so he has to hop just on the other one. Luther is shot repeatedly and receives one on the waist and another one in his leg. Diego decides to put himself between his brothers and carry them both until they arrive inside the building. Still standing up, he drags them behind the piece of a wall and that’s when Diego is shot again, just right under his breastbone, causing him to fall down. Luther barely moves with blood all over. He can’t react for a few seconds.

“Shit...” Luther hisses, shaking the dust off his dark clothes. He doesn’t usually cuss, only when things get too fucked up or just like he reacted when he was notified in the Moon that Reginald had died. He sees on his right that Five is not shaking anymore, but his breath is starting to fail. The shots have stopped, meaning that they’re getting closer. The shooters and the Metalbender are working together really well. “God... Diego, come on, man...”

When Luther looks on his left, his heart sinks; he has to jump over a piece of wall to check out his other bleeding brother. Diego can’t speak, he only mutters things while Luther presses his chest and holds his hand. The shots start again.

“D-Diego, come on, man, man, come on... You’re gonna be fine, just breathe okay?” Luther can’t stop talking. Diego doesn’t move, he just spits blood while blinking fast and staring at the ceiling. “You’re gonna be fine, you’re… you’re gonna be fine, dude, _fight until the end_ , remember? You always do that, dude.”

This time, Diego manages to mumble something that makes sense.

“T-Take...”

“What is it?” Luther asks, holding his hand.

“T-Take… Take F-Five…”

Luther shakes his head frantically.

“No, dude, no, no, no, no way.” Luther stutters with teary eyes. “No, no, no way, you’re gonna be okay, just...”

Just as Luther keeps rambling, still in the real world, Diego feels like he opens his eyes in a gray prairie with gray trees, inside the limbo. He sees a familiar shape in the middle of the trees, looking around himself and being confused.

“Reginald!?”

It’s Klaus. He’s here again. He did it. He’s finding out the truth.

Still with the question of why Reginald would kill Luther Halliday, Klaus passes by his side and Diego knows he won’t see him. Somehow, Diego still feels the abandoned building around him and Luther sobbing and holding his hand. In the meantime, he sees Klaus keeps walking, having his own fight, looking for answers.

“Regi!?” he exclaims several times.

Klaus frowns and sighs. God, Diego is so proud of him.

“Dad!?”

So, so proud of him.

He can’t physically see Klaus anymore, but he _feels_ as Klaus stops abruptly when he suddenly sees a dark, cracking, old mausoleum. Klaus feels dizzy, angry, weak. He knows the answer is inside. His brother sighs, takes a deep breath and, even hearing the mumbling voices of terrifying ghosts, he opens the metal door and gets inside before closing it.

Diego _feels_ as his brother doesn’t bump into a terrifying place, the biggest nightmares of his childhood or what he fears the most, but a (gray) loving house, pictures displayed along the walls, some stairs with bedrooms and a living room with a comfy kitchen, food ready to be served. Diego feels as Klaus looks all around himself in the living room. Seconds later, two strong arms hug him by his back and Diego is smart enough to know who it is. However, Klaus has to turn around to check out that, indeed, it’s Dave who has cuddled him from behind, smiling lovingly and waiting for him. Klaus only takes seconds to hug him back and sob uncontrollably.

Diego thinks that’s all, but no. As soon as Diego looks around the gray prairie, he notices a smaller shape kneeling down next to him. He can listen to Luther sobbing desperately while Diego kneels down too, turns around and sees Patch, smiling at him and taking his hand. “Patch...” he murmurs in the real world. Diego hugs her tightly. That’s all he needs for the red color of his scarf to turn _gray_.

Luther, in the real world, subsides his sobbing. He notices his brother’s chest is not moving and his eyes are lost, not blinking. He takes his pulse. There isn’t. Luther tries to make CPR for several minutes, but it doesn’t work. Luther breaks down. The brother he has always fought the first. The brother who was always by his side, reminding Luther how a pain in the ass he was and making fun of him. Trinity had warned him.

**_**“Do you think Allison’s death would hurt you the most?”** _ **

Luther hits the stone floor and the shooting keeps going. He curls up next to Diego’s corpse.

“Luther...”

 _Crap_.

Luther shakes his head before standing up, running to Five’s weak body and taking him with his only useful arm. He looks back at Diego’s corpse one last time before running to a hole in the building and getting the hell out of there.

At least, he knows Diego is at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is there any hope left after a won fight like this has finished this way?  
> [ "Luther Halliday": Richard Madden ]  
> [ "young Reginald Hargreeves": Hunter Johansson ]  
> [ "young Erin Hargreeves": Scarlett Johansson ]  
> [ "grandfather Hargreeves": Ian McKellen ]  
> [ "dead grandmother": Nicole Kidman ]


	10. 2x09: "They Don't Care about Us"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Are they actually prepared for what's coming in the end of the world?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ninth episode | Song: "They Don't Care about Us", by Michael Jackson

_Skin head, dead head_

_Everybody gone bad_

_Situation, aggravation_

_Everybody allegation_

_In the suite, on the news_

_Everybody dog food_

_Bang bang, shot dead_

_Everybody’s gone **mad**_

_All I want to say is that_

_They don’t really care about us_

_All I want to say is that_

_They don’t really care about us..._

****~~~** **

This has turned out worse than he could have figured. Despite the suppositions, all of the possible ramifications, everything’s gone wrong. If only he hadn’t been so ambitious... all of this wouldn’t exist.

_“No, no, no, shit. Run, run, run.”_

So, he runs as if there were no tomorrow.

Everything is their fault. Everything is _his_ fault. He should have figured things better. He should have used his powers given by that machine for not doing what he has just done. He should have listened to their father; they would have worked safely in the Temps Association, saving people from disaster in all North America and in the entire world and everything would be okay. But it’s not. This also wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t tell that _only_ his sister had powers or any powers at all. He put his own twin in danger and he fucked it up.

What is he supposed to do now?

He’s running away as fast as his feet let him to and as much as his dark yellow tuxedo allows him to as well.

He doesn’t know how much time he’s running, but then, he sees the dark shape of their mansion where he, his father, his twin and his mother used to live; everyone collaborating in the Association, but their mother and the twins didn’t want to be too involved in it, not more than enough. Now, there’s the three of them except their mom. Reginald thinks that, after killing her husband, Erin must be swallowed in hatred, so he realizes she isn’t coming back to their home anytime soon.

Or she will.

The most logical thing is the fact that _he_ has killed her husband, so, despite fighting recently, she’s coming back for more; he would do it in her place and also because he knows his sister. Reginald gets inside their house quickly and bumps into their dad in the entrance hall, who looks at his son up and down before shrugging, nonchalantly, not worried but also with _contained_ eyes. He never knows how to describe it.

“Son?” the father asks, confused by his shivering. “What is going on? Can you tell me?”

Reginald gulps.

“We have to get out of here!” the son stutters, running to his bedroom with his father following him calmly. Reginald takes a suitcase and puts a lot of money and clothes inside. The older man is calm. “Hurry, father! She’s gonna kill you too!” He’s shaking. “Or not if she continues our plan...”

The father clears his throat, nonchalantly again. Their father is out of his mind, but he’s also a genius.

“Son, I have good protection under the Association, I told you about the secret bunker.” the father says without caring too much and his child doesn’t understand. “ _You_ have to run away, son. You have to run away from her. Make her think you’re in the bunker for a while.”

“B-But why?” Reginald protests, confused, out of his mind too and feeling desperate as well. He’s full of adrenalin and desperation. “Why me? B-But... But I have nowhere to go! E-Even if I get to run away, Erin would end up finding me and kill me...” He gulps again. “I’m alone, dad, not like her, she has good companions... I can’t defeat her. I’m so alone. I don’t have anyone else. I can’t defeat her.”

“Of course you can’t.” the father spits and Reginald doesn’t get it. “And of course you’re gonna be caught by her sooner or later. She’s my daughter after all, so she’ll know what to do here. You’ll have to fight again, but by then, you’ll already know what to do to stop her and her plans.”

Reginald doesn’t understand anything at all from the conversation. Well, he actually understands just one thing. He has to stop his sister because he can’t run away forever and ever. He has to do something else, but he doesn’t know what or how. He feels lost for the very first time in his life.

Reginald shakes his head.

“I... I don’t know, father, I mean, how do I stop my sister?” the son stutters. “How do I do that? Where do I go to plan how to stop her until she knows I’m not in the bunker?”

His father just sighs deeply and looks briefly at the ceiling of his son’s bedroom while stroking his dark tie from his black suit. He looks spaced out.

“Listen, son, listen.” he mutters. “This is important. This has to do with the Temps Association.”

“Ho-?”

“Shut up and listen, son.” the father hisses. His eyes are dark and decided. His son doesn’t know where this is going. “Important. Look into my eyes when I’m speaking to you. You’ll leave North America right now. Someone will give you instructions of what you have to do when you arrive in Bordeaux.”

“ _Bordeaux_?” Reginald frowns. “Why France?”

“Nobody else knows this, but France is always a good exporter of interdimensional vortexes. You understand what a vortex is?” the father asks and the son nods frantically. If a place is a good exporter of vortexes, it means that place can open portals with enough energy. He’s going to need energy. “Good. France has also good scientists that can help you invent what you need to invent and, before you ask, that invention will do two things: take you back in time to another parallel universe and _other_ thing, that other thing will stop the apocalypse. And, no, I’m not telling you the second thing because it’s important for you to figure it out on your own. Got it?”

Reginald doesn’t get any of that. He didn’t fully understand the association of his father either; he just collaborated from time to time but not always. He just sighs, takes his bag and leaves his father behind; without saying any word or dedicating any glance, Reginald Hargreeves disappears into the darkness. He goes into the main headquarters of the Temps Association, takes one of the time-travel top hats made for himself, puts it on and goes straight to Bordeaux.

**_**[“They Don’t Care about Us”, Michael Jackson]** _ **

_... All I want to say is that_

_They don’t really care about us_

_All I want to say is that_

_They don’t really care about us_

****~~~** **

. . .

Allison takes the sweat off her face, pants, drinks a lot of water and gives the bottle to Vanya, who’s now resting on the sofa. Once they arrived just a couple of minutes earlier, Hazel and Gonzalo put Klaus’ and Daniel’s unconscious bodies on the bed of the center bedroom as Haz took a chair, sat down to check out if they’re still breathing and made sure it remained like this. Both of their breaths are utterly slow, but it’s something. Daniel has a paler skin tone than before, but he’s alive. The others, Allison, Vanya, Bopha and Gonzalo, are on the chairs displayed around the table, waiting for the two to wake up.

It’s been the hell of a couple of minutes. She can’t believe the day isn’t finished yet... and the end of the world is coming soon.

Allison takes a deep breath before taking her talkie and, with trembling hands, clicking the number one. She waits some seconds.

Luther doesn’t answer.

She clicks the number two, but there are interferences, meaning that it was destroyed. Maybe with Luther’s talkie too.

So, Diego doesn’t answer.

Shaking, she clicks the number five, and Five is always the first and fastest one to answer his talkie.

He doesn’t answer the call either.

“No, what, what’s happening?” Vanya asks, utterly worried and uneasy. She has to drink more water to soothe herself. However, at the same time, she doesn’t want to lose hope so soon when bad news could arrive to the group at any time right now. “W-Why are they not answering?”

“The best option is that they’re running away in the sewers, which explains that there’s no signal.” Hazel says out loud, still in the chair of the bedroom. “The worse option... well, you know what.”

“It doesn’t make sense.” Vanya complains, rubbing her hands. “If they’re running away, it means that Five is hurt. They couldn’t teleport to us in the fight. What if they couldn’t even prevent Harold’s death?”

“I hope they’re okay.” Bopha says carefully. Being like she is, she’d say that she’d cry out loud if someone has died because she likes people fast (she’s introverted; at the same time she likes meeting new people), but she knows it’s not what the siblings need, not right now. “But if they’re actually okay... now, we have to focus on the third _thing_ whether they’ve stopped the second one or not.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Vanya says, stroking her cheeks and resting her forehead on the edge of the sofa. Just a couple of minutes pass, but they feel it’s like a lifetime. They look at the watches they have (once and again) and they can’t believe it’s just a quarter to seven in the evening. Just forty five minutes since they sat on the grass to make a connection with Daniel, which ended up... okay, but Klaus and Vanya just received flashes from the memories, too fast to analyze; they hope Klaus could take something from that bridge of memories in his point of view. They’re doubtful. “So, Erin was in those memories, shortly, but she was... Who was the guy dancing with her?”

“Her lover? Her partner? Her boyfriend?” Gonzalo comments, shrugging, caressing his neck. “The thing is that that guy has something to do with all, with the treason or the reason your papa left.”

“The memories were... that Victorian couple, the construction of the machine, hatred, blood, lights and darkness.”

“I can get to _picture_ how the machine, the hatred and the blood are related, but the _lights_ thing?” Hazel comments out loud. He thinks about that, obviously, the Handler wouldn’t have pursued her brother for nothing. “No idea.”

Five minutes go on and they feel way longer. They don’t know what they’re doing: maintaining needed silence or waiting for something to happen. And, if they’re waiting, they don’t know what: for his three brothers from Group A to appear back in the hideout or for Klaus and Daniel to wake up. However, they feel like Klaus is going to take long, at least, just a little bit. He must be looking for answers. Allison wonders what he must be doing right now in the infraworld.

It’s almost 7 pm and Vanya reminds them all that the apocalypse is around midnight because the concert started at 10 pm. They have a few hours left, but it’s too close to what they have to do.

The Moon.

Vanya thinks about the others... and about herself. She thinks about her father (a total prick), Pogo (the one she killed), her mother (whom she also killed when she destroyed the Academy) and about the two friends she met in the ice cream shop. She wonders if they miss her or something or if they liked her enough to look for her just a little bit. Vanya also thinks about the entire world she destroyed in the previous timeline. She has a chance to save this one too, to redeem herself, just like her siblings have been doing this time for real.

Then, she suddenly thinks about Trinity and the magicians. Are they doing something right now to help them all? It doesn’t look like so. They feel completely useless. They won’t do anything to help for this midnight, but are they going to do something important at this moment?

Where is that woman from?

Woman? Girl? She looks like a teenager but also too mature for her looks. She must have gone through a lot because of what Daniel read inside her mind when he connected to Luther’s.

“We’re alone at the moment.” Hazel says suddenly, standing up and taking the best of his guns. He walks to the door and starts unlocking it. “We’re here, waiting for people to arrive or to wake up, we’re not doing anything. I’ll try to go to the rooftop of this building to keep the apartment under surveillance. Does anybody come with me to have fun upwards? Anyone?” Vanya thinks about it. She felt the urge of helping back in the dead-end zone, where they tried to hide a little bit until the wave of shots subsided because they were cornered. Luckily, because of the fact that it was sunny enough back at that hour and there were people walking in those neighborhoods, they stopped shooting even from other rooftops and that’s when they could go back to the hideout.

And, just like Vanya has thought some minutes ago, this is definitely going to the news. At most, the waves of energy she created when she was defending them all with Hazel, being a hero, having her responsibilities. At least, why there were shootings from different rooftops close to the center of the city. The hideout is in the south-east, but they ran for a while after they managed to escape from the park.

Hazel gets out of the hideout without locking the door but still with his talkie and his best guns. She’s full of an unnerving feeling of not knowing anything now; she is feeling quite useless right now and she hates that; she thought having powers would change that. After a while, Allison’s talkie vibrates and she hurries to take it.

“Yeah? Who is it?”

 _“It’s Haz.”_ he answers. Allison can’t help but be down because it’s been minutes since they tried to call any member from the other group without any answer. God, she doesn’t even want to start imagining the worst scenario. _“Bad news. There are fewer people in the streets, so they could be shooting any time again when there’s nobody... Oof, I hope the others arrive soon so that we go to the theater as soon as possible. Just in case, I need somebody with me. Someone fast.”_

“Got it.” Gonzalo says nonchalantly, standing up, grabbing a random rifle and leaving by the door before closing it.

“Well...” Vanya mutters to her sister and her new friend. Bopha looks like a really nice person, and the best part, honest. “At least, Hazel has been able to access the rooftop. I hope everyone’s okay.”

“Yeah.” Allison says, standing up and looking at the board back on its place and she stretches her muscles. “What is the connection between all of this? I mean... There’s a reason why the Academy exists. To win against the Handler, but what if there’s something else above all of this?”

“Like what?” Bopha asks.

“No idea.” Allison chuckles with sadness and tilts her head to rest it against a wall. “This is hard.”

“ _That’s what she said_ , Klaus would say.” Vanya figures out and the sisters laugh softly while Bopha just smiles, with sadness too. The three of them stand up at the same time when they listen to heavy footsteps coming up to the levels (because there isn’t an elevator of any kind) and into their one. Vanya closes her eyes and focuses on the sound of the footsteps getting closer to the hallway, towards the door they’re behind. Vanya opens her eyes again after turning off the white of her eyes. “It’s Luther!”

They all run to the door and Bopha opens it immediately. And, just like Vanya has just said to confirm it, Luther is walking slowly towards the door with his dark clothes, several wounds caused by shooting and something small in his arm. When Luther arrives at the entrance and gets inside, they realize it’s Five that thing he’s carrying. Bopha and Vanya take Five’s body immediately and put him on the table. Vanya and Bopha take the emergency kit and start healing him.

Five’s not shaking, but he barely moves inches and his breath is very shallow. Vanya cuts some strips of bandages while Bopha uncovers the clothes off his wounds. The worst one is on his shoulder.

In the meantime, Allison is used as a cane to help Luther to lie on the sofa. He practically faints on it despite how uncomfortable it is. She makes sure he doesn’t have any deep wounds that could be lethal, not like Five’s, so Allison makes tourniquets for his arm, his waist and his leg. Luckily, thanks to his powers, they’re only a little bit bloody, but these bullets must have hurt a lot in their rush. After treating him, she feels like she’s able to sit down on a chair next to the sofa and also close to the table because Bopha and Vanya have already put safe bandages on Five’s wounds.

The three women take a deep breath after they feel that the great adrenalin in their veins subsides, so Vanya and Bopha sit down too and sigh deeply.

“So...” Vanya hisses, tired, confused, determined.

Allison takes courage and looks at Luther, also tired, confused, but... defeated. She doesn’t know how, given that Luther is the first to take the first step, to solve things despite people thinking he’s a terrible pain in the ass. His eyes look red, his face is dirty and his glance is staring at the wall. His hands... are also filled with blood. And that fact is what makes her dizzy.

“So.” Allison hisses, echoing her sister. She sits on the edge of the sofa and strokes Luther’s shoulder in order for him to focus on their situation. “So, what happened?” Luther won’t react. He shivers and, slowly, very slowly, he makes his big body lie on the sofa completely. Allison calculates that the talkies were destroyed in their own fight. Of course, the Commission went right after them when they prevented the event, which means success, but... “What... What is it?”

Luther won’t answer yet. He’s in shock. Vanya’s heartbeats increase faster and she wants to curl up on the floor; imagining she is told the worst scenario in her mind.

And she is.

“Diego’s dead.”

****~~~** **

Klaus feels an affectionate stroke on the back of his neck that makes him melt for the millionth time, but with the stroke number one million and one, it’s when he’s able to stop spacing out and his eyes are now able to look through dried but recent tears. He looks around the place.

This house is cozy, warm and nice. A perfect place from his few good dreams. There are childish drawings, a sandbox close to the glass doors (with a garden behind them) on the back of the living room, traveling and _lazy_ photos, diplomas. He can already imagine the children, the garden and the cat; waking up late on Sundays and making breakfast for his kids, _their_ kids. The walls are gray, of course, just like everything else (Klaus’ clothes are with more white tones and purple laces; the purple from those laces are seen), but the place looks like it would have simple colors in the real world.

Klaus blinks several times and releases a stuttering breath, hugging the body between his arms tighter, that being the only thing that’s keeping him sane, like it always has been and always will be despite what happens in the future. Holding onto him is the only thing that keeps him hanging on the thread, not falling into the dark abyss he has tried to face without failing.

After a while (a _while_ for this world; he doesn’t know how time works here, but he hopes to come back to it in time for the end of the world), he takes courage to take a deep, shaky breath, shakes his head to clear his mind and he makes the pit in his stomach disappear successfully, which makes him speak for the first time... since he last saw him.

“Diego’s dead.” he mutters and Klaus lets tears go once more. There’s a pang in his chest that makes this harder and, when Dave notices he’s crying again, he hugs him tighter. Contact feels good. He missed it. “I... I feel it. I felt it-I...”

“Shhh... I’m here.” Dave reassures with the calmest voice ever. And Klaus remembers the way that voice soothed him when he had nightmares back in the war. Klaus tightens his eyelids and his body shakes because it’s like his own body remembers the way Dave made him feel. That feels worse when the other man dips his fingers softly into his hair. “I’m here. I’m here, okay?”

He knows. But Klaus is not okay.

“I’m glad... I’m glad you are, here I mean...” Klaus manages to mutter after a while because he doesn’t know what to say right now. He focuses his eyes on the gray shirt and pants of the man he’s holding. “You know...”

“I do.” Dave nods even if the other man can’t see that gesture. “Can you... Can you look at me, Klaus?”

Klaus doesn’t answer immediately. He wants to enjoy this closeness for a little bit longer. He wants to stay like this forever. They’re cuddling, stroking each other with softness and enjoying the intimacy.

Then, he’s ready.

Little by little, slowly and patiently, Klaus moves away his chin off Dave’s strong shoulder, steps a little bit back (just half a foot, no more), cleans his more recent tears, takes a deep breath (that comes out in a stuttering exhale) and, then, he’s able to move his body to look at him properly.

And, _God_ , how much he has missed that face.

Despite the sadness, despite the obstacles, despite the troubles they had to overcome (individually and together), despite Klaus’ losses sunk in his heart... they smile at each other.

Klaus immediately hugs his sturdy shoulders and Dave cradles the back of his neck and his free hand is holding his waist right in their place. They just look at each other and, this time, Klaus is totally aware of the pass of the time. One of the other many things he loved about Dave is that he helped him be grounded, stop spacing out too much, and focusing on what matters.

“So...” Dave mutters after a while and strokes the back of his neck again, without stopping for a while as they’re talking. Klaus melts because of the touch, of course, once more. Dave has this amazing ability to make him melt with his fingers. “How are you?”

Klaus tilts his head while chuckling with sarcasm. He doesn’t know what to say. He bows his head and sighs deeply.

“Well...” he mutters, hesitating between _as far as can be expected_ or _I feel like complete shit_. Dave reads through his expressions. “No idea, honestly. One of my closest brothers has just died, just like Ben. Again, losing someone.” He huffs and strokes his eye, so Dave takes his hands (with the one from the waist) and intertwines their fingers. “I feel terrible.” He frowns. “And also... the most hopeful I can be right now. But, my terrible dad turned out to kill my aunt’s husband... and she runs the organization that has caused the apocalypse, and everything is a mess, and...”

Before Klaus breaks down again, Dave is there to squeeze softly the back of his neck and his hands. Klaus has to rest his forehead on his shoulder again for a while, and then, he looks back at him.

“Klaus.” he says, voice reverent, determined and, despite that, his eyes are teary too. He clearly must have missed Klaus too, no matter how time works differently in this place. “I want you to know that... that despite you not seeing me in the real world, I’m right by your side. Always.”

Klaus smiles and chuckles. Despite the shoes he’s wearing, he feels the anklet on his left foot, as it’s always been. Not the anklet only because the dog tags have always been there too until they disappeared. It’s _Dave_ who has always been with him, no matter what souvenir.

“I know.” he mutters, flirty. “I know, honey. You’ve always been, from my missions throughout the past decades and all that jazz...”

Dave doesn’t understand, but then, he tilts his head and closes his eyelids a bit, racking his brain. Klaus guesses that, being in the infraworld, Dave knows some things (like how the Hargreeves have ended up here) but not _everything_ , not some details like the John thing.

“Wait.” he whispers, trying to reflect on it. Klaus awaits, smiling widely, without fading it. Later, Dave looks back at his eyes and opens his mouth. “You...” Before he finishes, Klaus nods frantically. Dave laughs briefly and tightens his hold on his waist a little bit after putting the hand back there. “You... You were that kid?”

Klaus nods again, kind of hysterically.

“Yeah.” he claims with a dry voice. “I was _John_...” Dave laughs with him and they hug once more. After the wave of emotions subsides, they split but not too much, both desperate for physical contact. “Yeah, I... I’ve been able to return here thanks to a telepathic man called Daniel, he... he told me that the John thing showed that we loved each other before meeting as adults. I know, _corny_.”

“It is.” the other man taunts. “But as long as it’s with you, so be it.”

“You’ve always been sappy, haven’t you?”

“I have.”

They chuckle together and keep stroking each other.

“God, I...” Klaus mutters, scratching his nose. “I... I don’t want _this_ to end.” Dave nods, returning the sentiment. He knows this moment was coming, saying goodbye all over again, like when they met again back in 1952. It’s not a good feeling, if he’s honest. “I don’t wanna leave... I...”

“I know, I know. Come here.” Klaus throws himself at his strong arms once more. “I... Klaus, listen.” Klaus splits and looks at him through teary eyes. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future, okay? No idea. I just... I just know that you’re gonna do fine, not just in the end of the world.”

“How...?”

“Listen to me, please.” Dave asks, reverent. “I can’t _promise_ to you that you’ll see me again after you get out of here. I can’t.”

Klaus bows his head and his body shakes. He knows, but that makes a horrible pit in his stomach.

“I...” he stutters. “I know. It’s hard to cope, though...” He gulps and dares to look at Dave in the eye. He misses his blue eyes. “I know you’ll always be with me despite me not seeing you and all, but... I can’t assimilate the idea of not seeing you again.”

“You’ll be fine.” Dave just says, without knowing what to say. “You’ll be. You can overcome anything life throws at you, look how you got here. You’ve come so far and I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

Klaus tightens his eyelids for a second only.

“Damn it...”

“You can do this.” Dave says, nodding and keeping the other man grounded. “You can do this, okay?”

Klaus hesitates for a while. He doesn’t know how to rely on himself to truly overcome his death in case he can’t see him ever again. It feels kind of inconceivable. He can’t even imagine it. Dave knows he’s doubtful about their situation, but he waits for him to speak his mind. Klaus conjured him in a destroyed parallel universe, yeah, but under different circumstances, under different events. With another powerful ability such as telekinesis being discovered and surely needed for the end of the world, maybe his necrokinesis withers with time... including his two dead brothers as well.

“What if I can’t?” he whispers, looking at the floor and frowning just a little bit. “Overcoming _you_? I mean... I can’t assimilate that in my mind, I can’t...” He gulps deep and shakes his head several times. “You meant _a whole world_ to me, you still do, I can’t overcome you just like that...”

“Klaus-”

“No, you listen to me this time.” Klaus interrupts, suddenly really serious, and full of determination. “I know there are other people in the world that can make me happy but not as happy as I was with you.” Dave keeps quiet, knowing the other man is right. “Not as much. Overcoming you would take me weeks, even months. You’re the apple of my eye. You’re my world. I... I mean, I’m not saying it’s impossible overcoming you, but it would take me a _lot_ to do that. I won’t be the same.”

“You’ll still be _Klaus_.”

“I know, but you know what I mean.” he claims. Dave knows. “I’m gonna be myself always, always me, but getting over you will cost me a lot... if I can’t see you ever again. You know what I mean?”

“I do.” Dave mutters. He moves his hands until they’re both holding the other man’s cheeks while Klaus is holding his strong arms. “I don’t know either what’s gonna happen after all of this shit. I don’t, if I’m honest. But I trust _you_. And given that I trust you, I know you’ll get over me, someday.”

“Someday?” Klaus chuckles with sarcasm, never one to avoid humor in this kind of situation despite everything. “You must really trust me, Davey, what a blast. I think you’re a little bit blind.”

“Only for you.” Dave responds, chuckling too. “But right now... I’m okay with my current state of existence. Your family needs you.”

“I know.”

“I trust all of you too.” he makes sure. “But... just in case the apocalypse happens again, I want you to forgive Five.”

Klaus frowns and complains.

He figures that Dave knows that Klaus is mad at him... but not the reason. If he sees Dave after this, he’s going to tell him in chapter and verse, but right now, only the main problem of why Klaus is mad.

“Do you really want me to forgive him before we die just because death would be coming right to us? Not because I _really_ forgive him?” Klaus hisses, doubtfully. “He lied to me in my face.”

“I know. Despite that thing... I know what’s the feeling of dying with something that _blocks_ you as a ghost. In my case, it’s my love for you, but in Five’s, it could be guilt. As a ghost, he couldn’t _exist_ with guilt.”

“Yeah, yeah...” Klaus mutters, stroking his nose. “It’s hard. But in case we don’t solve all this shit, I’ll forgive him. I’ll also try to convince Luther to forgive Allison. They’re in a hard situation too.”

“I bet.” Dave comments. “Now... Are you ready?”

“For... leaving?”

“No.” Dave says with a gentle smile that melts his heart all over again and, then, he takes the other man’s hand with tenderness. “Not yet. You were looking for _your_ answers too, remember?”

Klaus smiles and lets Dave softly guide him through the glass doors of the back of the gray house.

****~~~** **

It’s been complicated in the last few minutes. What they exactly thought, the worse scenario. Just after Luther gave them the terrible news, Allison felt a pang in her heart and her knees buckle, her mind spinning all around, but nothing comparable to how Vanya reacted _physically_. Vanya knelt on the floor little by little, legs and hands shaky and, then, she closed her eyes, slammed her hands on the floor and screamed.

Her shout caused an expansive wave extending from her body, her chest; it spread through the whole level of the building and broke everything that was fragile. Still screaming, she stuck her chest with her knees and hugged her legs. In the meantime, everyone was covering their ears, waiting for the wave of her emotions to end, which didn’t happen until two minutes later. Then, Vanya stopped shouting and started crying uncontrollably and her entire body was shaking.

Right now, in this exact moment, Allison is hyper aware of her surroundings; she’s able to react now, so she shakes the dust off her clothes for having landed against the wall two minutes earlier, drags herself next to the table and hugs her sister on the floor. Allison can’t stand her own sorrow in her entire body either (she doesn’t know since when she started crying), but she pushes through it with determination and tightens her sobbing-out-loud sister. She puts Vanya’s head on her lap, still there, while they keep breaking down together. In fact, they remain in the same position five minutes later, when Hazel and Gonzalo get inside the already open door (because of the expansive wave), astonished and wondering about the noise they heard.

“What happened?” Hazel demands. Allison looks at him with wet eyes and cheeks, still stroking her trembling sister. Then, Haz sees that just Luther and Five are there. “Oh, no.”

Hazel blinks several times and rests his back against the wall, suddenly feeling weak.

“What happened?” Gonzalo asks, without realizing yet, entering and closing the door. They notice everything around them is a mess. Luckily, just like when they arrived, the level is empty. “What is it?”

Bopha stands up little by little and tries to recover from the hit.

“Their brother Diego is dead.” she says with pity. Hazel covers his mouth. “The Commission went after them too, apparently, with more heavy weights than expected. _The more, the better_.”

Hazel stares at the front wall in shock. It’s not fair, it’s not fucking fair. Despite the behaviour and his way of seeing justice, Diego is... _was_ a good person. He perfectly redeemed this time for real, supporting his sister in everything she needed, whether it was silence or a random conversation to make her calm. It wasn’t fucking fair.

Vanya’s pit in her stomach won’t disappear, neither do her tears or her throat ache. Diego is gone. God, they promised each other to watch movies together after all of this. Is this how Klaus felt when he lost Ben and Dave? Shit. Losing someone feels like one’s heart has been ripped out of the thorax. Despite all of they’ve been through, somehow, Allison still finds a way to see just a little bit of light beyond the tunnel, so she takes a deep breath and strokes the back of her sobbing sister. Vanya looks at her through red eyes and thick tears.

“Van...” she stutters. “Van, listen.” she whispers. “Listen, honey... I-I know you hate to hear this, but... I-I’m sure Diego’s at peace right now.”

Vanya knows. But that doesn’t make the pain smoother.

“No...”

“Honey.” her sister insists. “I know you don’t have the... the energy to stand up after something like this... but... the world needs you right now. _We_ need you. We know you can do this.”

Vanya’s trembling subsides, but she deviates her look to the wall, still crying and sniffling. Allison knows she doesn’t want to move, that the only thing Vanya wants to do right now is curl up in the corner of the kitchen and close her eyes forever and ever. And, for the next minute, she doesn’t move an inch.

However, Allison notices Luther sits on the sofa but stands up quick (as far as can be expected). He goes to the bathroom, washes his face and his bloodstained hands, blood from his dead brother, and, then, goes back. Still in silence, he walks slowly towards the two girls on the floor and kneels. Without a word, he hugs Vanya and takes her to put her on the sofa. She needs a rest after everything she’s done in the day. He can’t imagine how _tired_ Klaus must be after he gets out from that infraworld.

Later, Luther and Allison sit on two chairs, slowly. Even later, Hazel goes to the kitchen with a teapot with cold water and glasses, serving them in the side that is not occupied by Five, who won’t react at the moment. However, his eyes are a little bit open, which means, he’s listening; he knows what happened to Diego. He’s sweating all over his face.

It’s two minutes past seven when Gonzalo breaks the silence.

“Well.” he mutters, stroking his hair. “Call me insensitive, but what the hell do we do now?”

Allison would have chuckled for how many times they’ve asked that question these days, if it wasn’t for the fact that one of their brothers has just died and the second one who has died so far. She gulps deep... because Klaus is still unconscious.

“Going on with the plan.” Luther mutters, getting more comfortable on his chair and serving himself some tea. The others do the same except Gonzalo, who drinks water and eats something sweet, something a _Flash_ needs to do. Those are the second first words Luther has said since he arrived from the second event and Allison has the urge to take his hand, but she gives him space. He must be jumpy from what happened back there. “We didn’t get to prevent the first event, but we got to prevent the second one. Right now, Harold Jenkins is in the hospital, being interrogated or arrested. He’s alive. But... back at his house we realized something.”

“Which thing?” Allison asks, still looking at her destroyed sister on the sofa from time to time.

“ _Things_.” Luther corrects, not in the mood. “We left a picture of Harold there for our copies to figure out that the eye is from him, also, with a little bit of blood from him to be analyzed, but I hope they’ve taken the pic and the blood already. Harold’s house must be a mess because of the shooting.”

They do a quick update. Right in that evening, Hazel must have gone to the Academy and offered himself to help in the apocalypse, but Five had rejected that idea because _the apocalypse had already been prevented because Harold was dead_. Luther was keeping Allison under surveillance because she had been hurt the previous night. Diego was trying to look for Hazel or Cha-Cha because they had killed Patch. Klaus and Ben were talking in his room and Vanya was already in her apartment, breaking down because she had listened to her sister’s message she hadn’t got to hear yet.

But now, this timeline is different because Harold is still alive. In conclusion, the other Five must be freaking out because the apocalypse is still on (despite Harold not being the real reason, but that was what he thought) He still has Dolores by his side. Hazel must be helping. Pogo had a sample reader for blood that is gonna take some hours to reveal the real identification of the blood in the apartment. Maybe the results are already available. Five must be also racking his brain of why there were signs of shooting in there. The rest remains the same except that now there’s a chance of Vanya’s copy not wanting to go back to the Academy to confirm if Allison is dead or alive, but that’s risky; that would depend on Vanya seeing Harold alive. Hazel, the original one, tells the original siblings and the other two gifted that there’s a probability of 51% of Vanya’s copy not going to the Academy. It’s... not the best number. They had more possibilities of winning the fight and they actually did, but instead, they’ve just lost someone. With those probabilities... how are they gonna do next?

Stating that they’re worried would be falling short, too short.

It’s ten past seven when Vanya, without more tears in her body to shed, sits on the sofa little by little and takes a deep breath. Allison gets up and kneels next to where she is, taking one of her hands while the other cleans her face and orders her hair after the breakdown minutes earlier. She looks like shit.

“Honey.” her sister says with a reassuring tone and strokes her shoulder. “I know you’re not, but, how are you now?”

Vanya tightens her eyelids and sighs.

“Bad.” she just mumbles. “Terrible... I... I need air. Alone.”

She helps her sister stand up slowly, accompanies her to the door and Vanya goes to the portal. Like she said, alone.

**_**[“Human”, Rag’n’Bone Man]** _ **

_Maybe I’m foolish_

_Maybe I’m blind_

_Thinking I can see through this_

_And see what’s behind_

_Got no way to prove it_

_So maybe I’m blind_

_But I’m only human after all_

_I’m only human after all_

_Don’t put your blame on_ **_**me** _ **

_Don’t put your blame on_ **_**me** _ **

****~~~** **

Vanya walks outside and stays close to the portal. There’s almost nobody passing by there, just people going back to their apartments or going to their nocturnal jobs (like guards or the police, which never rest).

Once she steps outside, she takes a deep breath and, unluckily, there’s a new wave of emotions that wants to get out of her again. There’s no tears this time just because of the fact that she has cried a lot these last minutes, but the pang in her heart is still there, not wanting to leave her side. Luckily, two minutes later she gets over it (at least, for now). She thinks just about herself this time.

She’s not bothered about the fact that she needed to have a power for her siblings to care about her anymore because these last weeks have been useful for them to get back together as a family, but, oh God, it feels awful. Why Diego? Why anyone? What if he’s not the only one dying today? Klaus is still unconscious and the theater event could be very dangerous.

She walks up the street once she feels ready. The Sun is not visible in the sky anymore, but the sky is not one hundred percent dark. She figures that the copies must be already in the Academy, including Five, obsessed about the incoming end of the world, waiting for the results of the blood and including her own copy because she must be already at her apartment. Vanya hopes that everything turns out the way it must be. She hopes that everything’s okay and that her copy doesn’t come back to the Academy this time. Despite that, there’s a possibility that her other self ends up in the theater because, technically, the concert is still on. And, because she has learnt how to play the violin without her medication, her powers could activate and the apocalypse would happen anyway. That’s why they still have to go to the theater. They don’t know if the copies will still be there. Is it better if they go or not? In Vanya’s opinion, not much.

Diego’s copy is still alive.

Crap, that feels like shit.

Vanya takes off her sunglasses and sighs. She doesn’t want another wave of emotions. She needs...

“Sam!” a delicious female voice screams. She looks around and sees Mark and Laura getting close to her with a medium pace. Vanya cheers up a little, feeling something in her chest, and smiles when they hug her at the same time. The closeness feels good, especially if it’s them. The last time her second dead brother hugged her was this afternoon before the groups split and he was the only one who hugged anybody. On the other hand, her two new friends move away and, suddenly, they look more serious. It’s like they know something’s going on. “Hey, honey, is everything okay there?”

Vanya fades her smile and closes her eyes.

“My...” she gulps and takes a deep, stuttering breath. Her eyes get wet again. “My brother has just died.”

The faces of the two of them fall down immediately. They look honest. What if they’re not? God, they remind her so much about the fake trust Harold earned from her. What if they betray her or lie to her?

Vanya’s obsessive thoughts disappear when Mark hugs her again; Laura strokes her hair and puts a lock behind her ear. Vanya just closes her eyes, enjoying comfort.

“I’m so sorry...” Laura mutters.

“Me too.” Marks whispers and his soothing voice relaxes her. Her body stops shivering and once they split (not too much), she feels better. “Do you have time for a coffee or something?”

Vanya wishes she had time for a coffee _or something_ (God, she can already hear Klaus’ taunts about love triangles, a _menage à trois_ ). But if she’s being honest, she doesn’t have any time at all. The mere thought makes her blush. What does she really feel about them? It’s confusing. They’ve only talked for three continuous hours, but still... they’re important. Is it possible to feel chemistry with someone just by speaking hours and so fast? Just like that for two people?

“Not really.” she answers. Mark and Laura look at her attentively. “I have... something to do right now... and after Diego died, I feel bad.”

“Wait.” Mark interrupts with a realization before his eyes. “Are you Vanya Hargreeves?”

Vanya opens her eyelids more and tries to take a step back, but Mark takes her hand softly.

“I...”

“You are.” Mark mentions carefully. “Are you?”

“I...” she mutters, confused, accelerated. She doesn’t know what to say. Now she understands why her brother froze, without knowing what to do on the middle of the highway.

“You are.” Laura realizes. She looks happy to see her and Mark is amused. “I read your book and I talked about it to Mark.”

Vanya can’t help but being surprised.

“You... read my book?”

“I did!” Laura claims. “It was incredible. Its narrative was kind of slow,” she says with honesty and Vanya guesses that’s one of the reasons the book was a blast and, then, it suddenly decreased its sales. It was just a blast because everyone was surprised that there was a seventh Hargreeves, nothing else. Not most people like novels based on someone’s life. “but I love autobiographical novels.”

“Me too.” Mark comments. “I study History at college. Laura studies Universal Literature.”

“I studied Music.” Vanya reports. And, from right there, she can’t stop talking with them, like if the end of the world didn’t exist. “... apart from that, I’ve been writing some short stories too.”

“Guess we’ll have to pass by your house.” Laura flirts. “For reading those stories of yours... Vanya.”

Vanya learns that Laura is sassy but quiet and intelligent and that Mark is determined, brutish, but gentle and delicate. And that’s why he’s the one to ask _the_ question of the year.

“Why didn’t you tell us the truth? Of who you are?”

Vanya reflects on the situation. _Because there’s another version of myself wandering around this city._

“I’m subtle.” she decides to say. “I don’t want people on the streets to recognize me, which is totally hypocritical, because I’m... you know, I study music and all...”

“It’s not hypocritical.” Mark defends her. “I mean, there are shy celebrities that don’t want to be recognized or photographed on the streets either.”

Vanya smiles. She needed this.

“Thanks.” she mutters to them. “I... have to do something tonight, but I hope you take care of yourselves.”

“Us too.” Laura smiles. “Will we see each other again?”

Vanya gulps deep and nods.

_“I hope so.”_

****~~~** **

“What are we doing?” Gonzalo exclaims, standing up, sitting down, standing up and sitting down once and again. Luther hasn’t spoken much and Allison stares at the wall. The newbies have been the only ones to ever speak the last couple of minutes. “We should be already going to that fucking theater to watch that place.” he complains. “That Commission. _Hijos de su puta madre_. What do we do now?”

Luther doesn’t want to talk, but he has to. He stands up from the chair and looks briefly at the two unconscious bodies on the bed of the center.

“We go together. To the theater.” he mutters. “We surround it, being careful with the talkies and warning about every little movement. _Every_ little movement.” There’s a knock on the door. “Who is it?”

“Me.” Vanya answers. Luther gets close to the door and opens it. She gets inside and he closes it back again. “I’m fine. Well, I’m better but not fine.” she says before Allison asks her. “We have to go to the theater now, right?”

“Right.” Allison answers. Then, they all notice the small body on the table starts sitting too fast for him. Allison and Vanya help him sit, and Five complains for the pain on the shoulder. “Five! How are you feeling?”

“Not great.” he mutters and, suddenly, all of what happened to his group dawns on him and it feels like a truck has gone over him. He doesn’t want to believe it. “D-Diego is dead, isn’t he?” And the others don’t even have to confirm it. Five frowns and bows his head. They keep a minute of silence. “Crap...” he gulps. He strokes his eyelids. He doesn’t want to cry in front of people. Five sniffles and shakes his head. “I... We need... We need to go to the theater... no matter what. I know I can seem insensitive, bu-”

“You’re right.” Hazel interrupts, who hasn’t talked much either. He stands up and starts preparing the bags each one of them should carry. “Good thing that there were more talkies. We have talkies for ten... and we’re eleven. I won’t carry one.”

“Bu-” Luther is interrupted.

“But nothing.” Hazel insists and looks straight into his eyes. Hazel knows that Luther has suffered enough already because he has just lost his closest sibling. “We have to get this done, remember? I’ll be fine as long as I’m with someone who has one.” Luther accepts it. “We’ll leave two talkies here... _if_ Klaus and Daniel wake up in time, if ever.” They don’t even want to imagine losing another brother on the same day. “Let’s go.”

They start to prepare themselves. Each one of them carries a satchel bag with a pistol (and bullets), some cash, basics about bandages and tourniquets, threads (just in case). On the other side, they have the talkies in the pockets of their jackets and the sunglasses. They go for wearing the darkest clothes they have in the closets, including scarves (and the wig for Allison). Luther has to change his black shirt because Diego’s blood is all over it. They leave two bags with the same items for Klaus and Daniel when/if they wake up. Five is okay actually. He won’t be able to flip, to be fast, to stab, to kill even, but he can teleport (less times than before) and fire with the pistol he’s given; but he’s okay with that. He can also serve as a position commander.

“Anything else?” Gonzalo asks and Five nods to make them understand they’re ready. “Okay. _Vamos allá, chavales_. Are we ready?”

They’re not ready at all. Even if Diego was alive and with them, even if Klaus and Daniel were up, they still wouldn’t be ready at all. They’re scared... and they’re terrified of what’s going to happen next. But, being as they are and they’ve always been, they’re prepared and willing to do anything at the same time.

Perks of being part of the family.

Guess that Bopha and Gonzalo have fit well.

“Okay.” Five says. He still feels like crap and defeated, but the time of truth is just around the corner. They can’t give up. “It’s dark now. We still have to be subtle in the night. If we see a copy, we avoid them. We hide. We have to advance carefully to the theater, so we’ll have to go through the sewers underground.” Allison can’t help but wrinkle her nose.

“No other choice, Ally.” Hazel comments.

“We also have to be attentive to the talkies, 100%, no matter what. Also, in case Klaus and Daniel wake up.” Five finishes. He sighs without discretion and shakes his dirty hair. Hazel thinks about it and hands them over bottles of water, which they keep in their bags. “Okay...” Five mutters. They’re not certain about anything at this point. But they have to stop thinking about the danger and jump into it. It’s now or never. “Fine. Let’s go.”

****~~~** **

Klaus doesn’t know where Dave is taking him, but he lets him guide him through the gray forest. They walk for a while and they stop in the middle of a clearing about twenty squared yards. He looks all around him, waiting for something.

“Just wait a little bit.” Dave reads his thoughts; so they wait.

Later, they hear footsteps behind them and, when they spin around, Klaus opens his mouth. Then, he runs towards the other man, hugs him and sobs for a while. He couldn’t imagine that this was going to happen. Was this supposed to happen?

“... D-Dude, I know you’re impulsive in fights, but s-sacrificing yourself?” Klaus chuckles while hugging Diego, giddy and sad at the same time. “Pathetic, you know?” he mutters and they move away. Diego makes a pity gesture with his face and punches Klaus’ shoulder softly. Diego feels different, but that’s logical. He knows how time works here because he’s dead now. He didn’t exactly sacrifice himself; he just told Luther to take Five instead of him because Luther couldn’t carry the two of them at the same time. It still hits hard.

“Well, you know me, don’t you?” Diego taunts, with a serious face with his new current state of existence, but in the mood. Then, he points at the girl behind him. “Remember Patch?” he says with a better mood. Klaus nods and smiles at her. Patch smiles but to Diego. They’re holding hands. “She had to die for me to realize what I had.”

“We already talked about this.” she insists. She looks good too. “Not your fault.”

“Swear.” Diego looks to his brother. “She’s been insisting on that all of my time here, being dead is exhausting.” Diego keeps quiet, looking behind Klaus. “That’s... Dave, right?”

“I am.” the man says, kind of reverent when the three of them get closer. Klaus feels tender. “Nice to meet you? If only... it wasn’t this way.”

“That makes all of us. Klaus has been a pain in the ass talking about you.”

Klaus blushes and smirks when Dave looks at him with tenderness.

“I was.” he admits. “I guess Ben is still in the real world, but he can’t talk to the others.”

“Right.” Diego hesitates. “I’m not sure I’m able to _go back_. I don’t.”

“But I can try.” Klaus insists. There has to be a way, there must be. He frowns, trying to think about something. “I don’t know _how_ , but I can try.”

“Fine.” Diego mutters and takes his brother’s hand. “Are you ready?”

“For leaving?”

“No.” Diego answers. “This is about your answers. What you need right now.”

Klaus doesn’t understand, a lot less when Dave touches his shoulder too. But then he starts feeling something burning under his feet. He looks down; it’s the _blue_ ball of energy surrounding his feet, his legs, his waist, and the weirdest thing about it it’s that the energy is turning the purple color of his belt and the laces of his long jacket to blue color; the sparkle goes up to his middle, his chest and his head.

He feels different.

During this weird process, he has felt a tingle in his forearms and his head. Two things involved in his telekinesis, at least, the few times he has used it. He looks between Diego and Dave. He doesn’t understand anything at all. He tries to, but he feels stupid because it’s like the answer is so obvious.

“W... What?” Klaus snaps. “What’s happening?”

“Now I guess you have your full potential, at least, something close.” Diego says, nodding with pride.

“More like something close.”

They turn around to the new voice and see Reginald Hargreeves at ten yards away. He looks calm, different and attentive at the same time. They thought they wouldn’t ever see him again. The two brothers don’t know how to feel; offended, traumatized, hopeful.

But then, before his two children can react, Dave and Patch are dangerously walking towards him. Their partners stop them.

“It’s okay.” Diego mutters to her. Patch doesn’t look happy at all, muttering _that’s **the** bastard, huh? He’s lucky I don’t have my gun here._

“Not to be rude, but what are you doing here, sir?” Dave hisses, holding Klaus’ hand with strength so he doesn’t run to his father-in-law again. Klaus doesn’t say this out loud, but he feels safer with that attitude.

“To confirm this closeness to Klaus’ full potential.” he says nonchalantly. “And-”

“Why did you kill Luther Halliday?” Klaus interrupts. The question surprises his father. He keeps quiet for some seconds.

“I did what I had to do.”

“Who’s Luther Halliday?” Diego frowns.

“The Handler’s dead boyfriend.” Klaus stutters.

“He was her husband.” he corrects and the four of them stay mouth open. Well, Klaus knew about that, but it still hits him like a truck. “If he had been with my sister when going back in time to your original timeline, he would have been the key to stop the forty three children from being born.”

“And how was that?” Klaus spits. “How did that-? How did you-? You invented a machine for creating all of us? Was there anyone else involved?”

Reginald looks far away from the conversation, nostalgic.

“Trinity will answer you that.” he says. “But not now.”

 _Not now_ , Diego thinks. Are they going to actually prevent the apocalypse? Are they going to live enough to meet Trinity?

“You can’t answer that?” Klaus asks, confused, and his dad nods. Crap. Getting answers was harder than he thought. But now, he’s closer to his full potential. What would he be able to do now? “Well...” He clears his throat and takes a deep breath. He’s not ready, but willing at the same time. He wonders if his siblings feel like that too. “I... I’ll try to get us into the real world.” Because his father doesn’t look like wanting to give any more clues. Diego gets close to him and touches shoulder, but Dave doesn’t. It creates a pit in his stomach. He did see this coming because getting close to telekinesis gets him away from necrokinesis, only being strong enough to just take Diego, but... it hurts. “Da-?”

“No.” he shakes his head with a sad smile. He looks painfully beautiful. “You don’t need me anymore.” Klaus opens his mouth, about to insist otherwise, that he does need him, more than anyone else in the world. “And before you protest, your family is the ones who needs you. The world needs you.”

“You’re _my_ world.”

Dave smiles again.

“First the world. Then me, remember?”

Klaus moves away from his brother and hugs Dave with everything he has. This is like 1952 all over again. He’s tired of saying goodbye to him and not him staying right by his side. Diego had promised him to help him conjure him, but what if something happens and he can’t do it? What about now? What if it takes all of his soul to get out of there after so many hours, that turns off his powers for the future and he can’t conjure Dave because there’s that emotion of loss that keeps blocking him? Dave was the only one who died in his arms. There’s always going to exist that emotion of loss blocking him.

Like Dave said, he didn’t promise Klaus he was going to see him again. It’s a cruel reality.

Klaus moves his chin away and they look at each other with teary eyes. They stay like that for a while. Instead of saying corny words or legendary sentences, Klaus bends and kisses him. It’s soft but passionate at the same time. Their fingers dance across their skins as they make it deeper, tasting each other’s tongues for some seconds, until they split and take a deep breath. Klaus doesn’t know what to say, so he splits and Diego takes his hand.

“Ready?” his brother asks him before saying goodbye to Patch.

Klaus looks at Dave. Maybe for the last time.

“I love you, you know?” Dave says out loud, and Klaus nods, shedding tears.

“I love you too.”

When Klaus closes his eyes, he takes a deep breath, makes his forearms shine blue and he feels like he’s not in the infraworld anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last episode of my own season is next, their last chance to avoid the apocalypse  
> Now or never


	11. 2x10: "Titanium"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last stand of the apocalypse, which people are gonna do it?  
> (Implied depression; if you've had it or you're sensitive, DON'T read this)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tenth episode | Song: "Titanium", by David Guetta and Sia

_I’m bulletproof nothing to lose_

_Fire away, fire away_

_Ricochet, you take your aim_

_Fire away, fire away_

_You shoot me down but I won’t fall, I am titanium_

_You shoot me down but I won’t fall_

_I am **titanium**_

**~~~**

“This is it.”

Reginald and his comrade, doctor Aubin Couture, take some steps back and look at their creation with surprised eyes. It’s been hard work, blood, sweat and tears. They’ve been building their _passage opener_ for almost twenty years. With it, Reginald can go back in time, to another parallel universe, to the first original timeline (because their own world is what’s commonly called a _primitive Earth_ ), to stop his own sister from causing something that would kill millions of people.

He knows she has thought of all this. Technically, Erin wouldn’t be the one who exactly causes the apocalypse but only triggering or avoiding certain things to make the end of the world happen. This _passage opener_ is for him to leave his native Earth before she follows him... because she will. Nevertheless, he will have enough time to create his other invention. This other invention is the one which will stop the apocalypse caused by Erin, his sister, because Trinity will have another role in that battle; that’s what that weirdo told him in their reunion.

Poor Trinity.

This other creation is and will be more complicated than he thinks. But it can work against Erin’s plans. He has to work hard.

“I’m not convinced.” Reginald mutters, frowning, and looking to the passage opener: squared, metallic, small but heavy. However, he still can carry it in his shoulders with a bag. He’s in the correct place for having more probabilities to open a passage to the past and he has the machine to help him; he only needs the energy to power it. “About what I have to do in that Earth.”

“Well...” Aubin says stroking his bald head. He’s barely fifty, but he’s already bald. He’s tall and his eyes are blue. He has had a hard life. Aubin’s father was the worst between the ten billion people in this primitive world, his siblings didn’t talk to him and his mother was dead. His father used to make his life impossible and the consequences are clear now on him. When Reginald and Aubin met, the guy showed obvious sings of... mental instability. He’s a genius but unstable. “I remember my father was toxic. Like _really_ toxic. One day, he-he used to tell me he loved me or treated my wounds when I was learning to ride a bike, telling me everything was gonna be okay. The other, he’d scream at me and lock me in my room for hours, without food, without light, anything, if I... got five out of ten in the marks in my school, despite me crying and slamming my door.” Aubin’s eye trembles and he abruptly smiles widely. Reginald smiles with sadness. “But no matter how much he caused traumas on me, he always told me he loved me. Right? Right?”

Reginald looks at Aubin.

With the plan he has to commit... it’s important to have this in mind. How is he going to do this? Raising _his plan_ is going to be more complicated than he’s planning it. If he tries to treat them all with some kindness, they also would need to train themselves as hard as they can for them to be strong and be prepared for the end of the world. However, if Reginald shows them any kind of love, they could end up as unstable as Aubin Couture and it’ll be worse because his _plans_ have superpowers.

“Aubin.” Reginald mutters and his poor friend looks at him with teary eyes but a big smile. “Would you have preferred if your father would have been 100% cold with you or...?”

Aubin shakes his head frantically, several times.

“NO! No, no, no, Regi, I-I love my father so much.” he hisses. “I’m okay. I didn’t have the best childhood with him, but he loves me. I know that, I know that.”

Reginald bows his head, frowning. He already has his answer.

Abusing his children for them not to be unstable in the end of the world sounds awful, terrible. _What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger_. They need to train their abilities the most possible to take advantage of that in the end of the world and after that. If only there was another way.

“Well...” Reginald puffs, looking back at their invention. “We did this together. I hope it works.”

“It will!” Aubin says, putting on his glasses. “It will, trust me. We’ve done already beta tests with it. It will work. You’ll be in the other Earth in no time.” Despite how bipolar Aubin can be, he’s a good friend. He will be probably the last person Reginald shows kindness to, unless he finds a loyal friend in this new world. That is sad. Aubin gets close to the machine to clean it carefully. “By the way, have you already kept your abilities in the jar?”

Reginald nods.

Reginald and his friend have been working on these projects for almost twenty years, but it wasn’t until five days ago that they changed their work space to an old store that used to manufacture shoes, but Reginald bought the store to pretend he was manufacturing umbrellas while they were working on the machines in the basement. He needs to invent a third machine for creating the _apocalypse-preventing_ plan, the machine that Luther Halliday would have helped destroy right by Erin’s side.

Before the store, the first machine constructed was a ring about two feet of diameter which absorbed powers. It was enough to absorb the powers of one person, but his father sent him a message and forbade him to steal Erin’s abilities _because what’s meant to be will be_ , so Reginald came to the conclusion of saying goodbye to his own in order to keep them in the jar. It’s been one week since he kept his own powers, which will be enough to open an interdimensional vortex to the past with the help of his own abilities. That will be in two days and Aubin will stay in the umbrella store, also, trying to protect Ruth from any danger.

Enough to save the world?

“Yes.” he answers. The second invention was the passage opener and the third plan hasn’t been created yet; that will be in the original timeline. “I hope I’m the shittiest father I know.”

“Funny!” Aubin chuckles. “What would you name your first son?”

Reginald has flashes when he saw the blood all over the umbrella he used to kill Luther Halliday. He doesn’t have to rack his brain.

“Luther.” he hisses with dry voice. “I don’t know about the rest.”

“Maybe names related to the place they will be born?” Aubin suggest with a napkin in his hands. “What will you do with the violin that Ruth Hartman gave you back when you gave it to her?”

Reginald smiles briefly thinking about her.

“I’ll take it to the other Earth.” he decides. “For someone special. Before losing my powers, I predicted that I’ll give it to one of the children that will be born in San Petersburg, I know no more.”

“Female or male?”

“Female.”

“What about _Vanya_?”

“Vanya... is the diminutive nickname for _Ivan_ , which is male.” Reginald frowns. “It’ll be-”

“Vanya it is then!”

Reginald puffs, rolling his eyes.

“Vanya will be, then.”

**~~~**

Two days later, at midnight. In the middle of a clearing, they’re already preparing the passage opener under a strangely greenish cloud, which are his own powers floating in the sky, waiting for them to be used as an interdimensional vortex as they planned it.

“Did you burn your diary, Regi?”

Reginald nods. Before losing his powers on purpose, he wrote everything he could predict in a diary and tried to memorize the best he could. However, if he carries this diary with him to the other Earth, his children could discover it. Even Trinity could discover it, she’s smart as hell.

“I did, before coming here.” he answers, putting the machine on the land and cracking his neck. He has his top hat just in case it’s useful, but he guesses Erin must have invented other objects to teleport through space and time already. “Is everything ready?”

“I hope not.”

Reginald and his best friend freeze when they hear her voice. They turn around. She looks the same, with full of hatred, a fun smile in her face full of falseness, her dark coat and a briefcase next to her on the floor.

“ _Merde_.” Aubin spits.

“Hello, brother.” she chuckles. Reginald tries not to be struck by nostalgia. “What have you been doing?”

“Trying to get away from you, to prevent all of this.” Reginald answers on his defense.

“All of this are the consequences of _your_ mistakes.” she says. He knows that already. “You know that running away to another world won’t stop it, right? I can go after you anyway.” She says, touching the briefcase with one foot. “And I won’t follow you alone. I have a lot of people under my wing after dad died.”

“The Temps Association.”

“Not anymore.” she corrects. “ _Commission_ sounded more appropriate to me, to what I’m going to do. I’m still preventing mom’s death, with or without you.” she spits. “I have people to help me. I couldn’t get Trinity’s help because she’s stubborn, but what makes you think she will help _you_?”

“No idea.” he confesses. “But I have a _plan_ that can convince her.”

“Oh, yeah?” she chuckles. “What is that plan about? Can you tell me?” Reginald shakes his head. “Will that plan help Trinity to stop me? You know Trinity _hates_ superheroes.”

“I know.” he claims. “But despite she hates heroes, she won’t hate my plan.”

Erin quickly figures out that his plan involves more people. He notices as Aubin carefully turns on the machine with one foot and looks up to the sky. Does Erin know about his lost abilities? He guesses so.

“People?” she laughs. “Are you gonna have people willing to help you? Look at you. If you can kill someone as innocent as Luther Halliday, you surely will fuck up helping those people to go against me.”

“I _will_ fuck it up with them.” he confesses. Crap, his sister must be planning to put more of the gifted children by her side too. “I’m only human. But they will success against the apocalypse. I know that.”

Both twins look up at the shiny sky when the passage opener connects with the bright cloud with a white thread. Erin opens her mouth when she sees a portal with the shape of a lemon opening behind her brother. When she takes a step forward, he takes a step back, dangerously holding his bag with everything he needs for his third plan, so she stops, desperate and shivering.

“Think about all the lives from that world!” she hisses out loud. “Think about all the lives you’ll ruin! Think about all the pain you’ll cause!”

“They’ll overcome them.” he makes sure.

“How can you be so sure!?” she screams. Reginald is not sure at all. He’s scared, but willing to do anything for his future plan. He takes a deep breath. “How do you think _you'_ ll win against me!? You can’t.”

Reginald opens his eyes again, one hundred percent sure.

“No.” he makes sure. “Not me.”

He closes his eyes again and takes a step back, entering the interdimensional vortex, leaving his native Earth behind, and entering a new one.

Without looking back at all.

**_[“Stairway to Heaven”, Led Zeppelin]_ **

_There's a feeling I get_

_When I look to the west_

_And my spirit is crying for leaving_

_In my thoughts I have seen_

_Rings of smoke through the trees_

_And the voices of those who standing looking_

**~~~**

Allison has to cover her nose with a napkin several times because of the smell. Thankfully, as usual, Hazel is more prepared than the rest, so he has great amounts of napkins and water; clean water, not the little stream passing by next to them, in their dirty sidewalk.

“Do all sewers smell like this?” Gonzalo pretends to puke. “ _La puta madre_. This smells so bad.”

“How do you know Spanish words at all?” Five asks him and Gonzalo laughs.

“Well, haven’t you thought my parents moved here last year, like we did?” he taunts and Five shuts his mouth. That’s right, he hadn’t thought about that. He also remembers as Grace taught basic Spanish to Diego and basic German to Klaus despite Klaus was born in Brno. “My father is not actually my father, but he raised me as one. He loves me more than anything, like if I had been born right from his own testicles.”

“Dude!” Bopha wrinkles her nose. “Cut it out.”

Gonzalo decides to keep quiet, at least, some more minutes. It’s around half past seven and they’ve been walking for some minutes. Hazel has got out of there in time to get a subterranean map of the city minutes earlier, so it’s easier to follow the instructions to the place. The theatre is close to the center of the city, but not exactly in it, just around some business buildings.

The sewers aren’t entirely dark, but they have to turn on their flashlights several times. Vanya’s worried about _Earthbender_. What if they figure out they’re walking underground? It’ll be easier for him to manipulate the ground in that zone?

“Do you guys know we have to be discrete, right?” Five comments suddenly. “With our copies.”

“We know, you mentioned it already.” Allison says, looking around the corners of the sewers. “We know. Maybe they don’t even come to the theatre.”

“They will.” Luther states serious. “The Commission could make them go somehow.” He keeps quiet for some seconds and they have to climb an old ladder for then coming down to the sidewalk. “Think about it. Think about everything they’ve done so far.”

“Right.” Vanya mutters, carefully and attentive to their situation. “Right. They’re gonna be there because of the Commission.” She tries to be careful to what’s she’s gonna say. “Because I don’t think they could be in the concert because they want to.”

“I was gonna be there anyway.” Allison defends her sister.

“Just you.” Vanya spits, shaking her head. She takes a deep breath. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“Hey.” Luther turns to look at her while they keep walking. Luther looks more determined than ever, the only perk of a recent loss. However, he still wishes not having gone through loss for understanding how to be that way. “We’re doing this together. Our copies are going through their problems, and us, through our own.”

Vanya nods, now feeling better. She hopes Mark and Laura are okay. What must they be doing right now?

“We need a plan.” Hazel mentions, avoiding a terrifying two inches spider that hangs from its home between the spiderweb. It reminds him of Diego. “About the movements.”

“Yeah.” Five says, helping himself with Allison’s arm to go under a big water pipe. His left shoulder hurts so much. “Thank you... The plan would be keeping the copies away from Vanya’s as much as possible. What triggers her to shoot at the Moon is a big noise, in our timeline, Allison shooting. We have to keep the others and also the heavy weights away in order for her not to _explode_. Keeping her away from brutish noises.”

“And how do we help the copy? To turn off her powers?” Gonzalo asks and he’s just asked a great question. They think about it for a while. “You all told me Ally’s copy can’t speak?”

“Correct.” Five responds.

“What about you, Ally?” Bopha suggests and the mentioned woman looks at her. “ _You_ trying to speak to _that_ Vanya?”

“I could.” she thinks.

“No!” Five spits and everyone stops abruptly to look at him doubtfully. “No. In the middle of the end of the world, we can’t afford having time to speak.” Allison frowns in disbelief and raises her arms. That is exactly what happened wrong in their apocalypse. “And I think we arrive in time before the concert to speak to her.” Allison is about to interrupt her brother, but he keeps talking. “I know I shouldn’t speak this way given the fact I’ve kept truth myself, but we can’t stop to speak just like that, unless it's the last choice.”

They try to convince Five that speaking to Vanya’s copy wouldn’t do any harm. But the more time passes, the more they run out of arguments.

“What about this?” Gonzalo counterattacks, lifting his finger. They turn around a very small corner, so they have to go over it careful not to step on the stream. “The first apocalypse was caused for not trying to speak to Vanya. Maybe this time around we have to speak to her.”

Before Five can counterattack too, Bopha intervenes.

“What you probably failed in was not supporting your sister.” she says playing with her fingers and reverent with their situation. She doesn’t want to say more than she should if she wasn’t in the original timeline. “We’re running out of time now, so we can’t speak to her. Besides, if we can’t reveal to them our identity, the ones speaking to her should be the copies. And also, they’re behind us, probably still in the Academy.” Crap. Bopha’s honesty is like slipping on thin ice, but they needed that. “So, if Vanya doesn’t go back to the Academy, it’s not going to be destroyed?”

They didn’t think about that.

“What if the Commission itself goes and destroys it?” Gonzalo adds.

Shit.

“They’re... They’re probably gonna destroy the Academy.” Luther breathes, taking the sweat off his face and stopping walking next to the others. He looks at a small water pipe with a small hole in it. But how would the Commission link the possible destruction of the Academy with Vanya if she possibly won’t come back to it? “So that the copies realize she’s the one who causes the apocalypse and try to stop her. They must be going nuts, especially Five’s.” Five doesn’t deny that. “Let’s keep walking.” They do so. “The Handler’s going to be there, I’m sure.”

“Why do you say that?” Five spits and touches his shoulder because of a pang he receives in it.

“Trinity.” he answers. “She told me her master told her that, in the time of truth, she will be there.”

“I wonder what she must be doing.” Five asks, thinking about her. On the other side, it’s a bit frightening to him that they could be the ones stopping the end of the world, yeah, but what if Erin comes after?

“Probably helping us somehow.” Hazel comments. “Especially with... Erin.”

“But the magicians are not gonna be in the apocalypse.”

“Well...” Hazel thinks, remembering. “In our original timeline, I was in a motel with Agnes when Erin came to us. The wizards must be around there before she goes to the theater. But I don’t know, I don’t understand those magicians.”

Despite all of that, Five notices something as insignificant as his cold breath coming out of his mouth. He knows it must be because the night is already down and all, but, still... it’s like what happened in the library, when his siblings started feeling cold.

“Guys.” Five mutters, stopping his pace, and the rest do the same when they see him. The others realize the same thing he does and look all around with the lanterns. “Crap!” he hisses, starting to walk again, and Hazel does the same, looking at the map. “Come on!”

The others follow quickly.

It’s a quarter to eight when they notice the walls and the stream are getting frozen, both with ice stuck and the water is getting totally solid. They arrive under a light, which indicates there’s a drain in it. When Hazel starts to unlock it with a screwdriver, the others feel colder and colder because the wave of ice is getting already under his feet. When Hazel finishes with his job, he pushes the drain over their heads and is down in the ice again. He tells them all to get out before he does.

Once they’re outside, they realize they’re right next to a bowling alley.

**~~~**

Klaus looks at Daniel. He looks at Diego before getting on the bed again and starts doing CPR on him.

“Come on, Dan, we need you, man...”

But he doesn’t wake up.

Klaus cleans his lips and sits on the edge where Daniel is, not unconscious, but not breathing. He reaches for his pulse; there isn’t any. Now Diego is the one who tries the CPR while Klaus throws him water as last chance.

But nothing.

“Dude...” Diego mutters, taking the sweat off his face and sitting next to his brother in shock. It’s weird being solid in this world as a ghost. “No way...” he hisses, slamming his hands on the mattress and growling. “Dude... How many people are we gonna lose today?”

Klaus looks at Daniel’s white face briefly with teary eyes before staring back at the wall. Being so much time connected to the infraworld affected him. Klaus could come back for his powers because he can't actually die, but Daniel? Apparently, no.

“I dunno, man.” he hisses, cleaning his face. He stands up little by little because of the fact that his entire body shivers. He can’t help it. This is the second time his family needs him and he’s not with them... and the end of the world is at midnight. Too close. “We... We should get going to the theatre...” They stand up after covering the corpse with a blanket and immediately realize there are two bags with stuff on the table. One of them was supposed to be for Daniel. Klaus puts the bag on and puts on a blue scarf and his sunglasses, the only things left for him to be subtle. Of course the others are prepared for the mission tonight. At least, the bag carries a gun he knows how to use and several bullets of replacement. Also, water. He also puts on what was supposed to be Daniel’s bag, just in case. He goes to the door with Diego, but stops.

“What?” Diego asks.

“Wait.” He looks at the drawer and the picture is not there. Then, he remembers he put it on the big bag Hazel always carries with him. He hopes he still has it. Then, he takes a chair and sits on it. He takes off his left boot and freezes for what he sees right now and opens his mouth in surprise.

“What is it?” Diego asks. Klaus looks at him with teary eyes and points at the anklet. The anklet, now, suddenly has the other half of the heart out of nowhere, like if it had always been there, but it wasn’t. Maybe... the heart was complete when he bumped into Dave in the infraworld. The heart is whole now. “Wow. But-how?”

“No idea!” he laughs, giddy, and takes a deep breath. He has to focus. “We-We should go.”

He’s about to re-start his pace, but he notices the blackboard and gets close, trying to decipher something in that moment. But nothing.

“Nothing?” Diego asks, without figuring out something useful. “What about the address I went to with Luther?”

Klaus looks at the gold address, stuck in the top left corner, next to a number five (which indicates five times they’ve tried to go to ancient headquarters).

“I mean...” Klaus mutters but then shrugs. “We could have tried going there, but we don’t have a Five or a briefcase to teleport to it.”

“Luther told us they teleported them inside to that other multiverse.” Diego reminds. “Maybe they could teleport us too? To their place?”

“Yeah, but how are we gonna do that?” Klaus complains, getting close to the door and putting his hand on the handle with determination. “How are we gonna call them or something?”

Klaus opens the door and closes it, supposing Diego would follow through it as a ghost. However, when he turns around, he doesn’t see his brother anymore because he’s not in the apartment building anymore. In fact, he even doubts that he’s in the city anymore.

When he turns around, he sees wooden gates instead of the normal door of their little place. He turns around once more and sees a big hall entrance with shelves, maps, objects, and big stairs going up to hundreds of levels. Klaus looks all around him before he notices a short shape is watching him with her back against a shelf. He takes a deep breath and a step forward.

“Tri?” he mutters.

“Trinity.” she mutters, stepping into the light. It’s just a little shorter than Five, with a serious expression, lilac clothes, and the blindfold covering her eyes have three horizontal lines with colors, from up to the bottom, purple, blue, purple. “Please, stay there. We hav-”

“Why can’t you help us in the fucking apocalypse?”

Trinity is surprised by the interruption and shakes her head like if she had been offended.

“Well,” she clears her throat. “things will turn out as they must. That’s all.”

“Did you know my dad?” Klaus asks and she nods. He frowns and makes a fast movement with his hand. “How? And why?”

“Well...” she looks faraway. “Let’s just say that _they_ rescued me.”

“Apart from my father?” he snaps with wider eyes. “Who else rescued you? Your master?”

“I was rescued by more than the two of them.” she says. “There were sev-”

“Why is your master never here when one of us come?”

Trinity frowns and bows her head.

“Actually... It’s better if you don’t bump into my master.” she just says. Klaus doesn’t know how, but that doesn’t make sense at all, but it’s still understandable. “Too many memories for the Hargreeves.”

“Why?”

“No more questions.” she interrupts. “You’re here for me to teleport you quick to your family. They need you.”

“Okay...” he mutters carefully. “Okay.” He’s now more determined. She’s definitely not going to answer more doubts. “Do I need to know something else?”

“Nothing.” she shrugs. “Just... remember what you learned in the infraworld. That’s useful for Erin to remember her husband, Luther Halliday.”

“Got it.”

“And remember to use your telekinesis.”

“Got it.” Klaus takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “See you soon, I guess?”

“You bet.”

And, when Klaus opens his eyes back again, he’s no longer in the other multiverse, but in a restroom. He wonders where he is until he hears familiar music. He realizes he’s in the bowling alley they went to in their original timeline.

**~~~**

“Update.” Hazel claims. “Remember? It’s almost 8 pm. What were you doing right now?”

“The Academy had already been destroyed.” Luther claims to the newbies. They’re hiding behind a corner, next to a vehicle store that’s been already closed, hiding behind some parked cars too. Just in case, Bopha has grown trees to cover them better. “We went to that bowling alley to think better about our movements, that we should attack our sister or not. Vanya went back to her apartment to get ready for her first concert. Hazel and Cha-Cha were in their issue in the motel, fighting, and later the Handler would appear there, and Five would go there to talk to her because she asked for it. We had to get out of this place because of the shooters, then, the theatre.”

”Crap, the possibilities of the Academy from this timeline being destroyed are getting bigger...” Gonzalo comments. He’s right because they originally went to the bowling alley due to the fact that their home was destroyed.

“What’s the next movement, then?” Vanya asks. “I mean, what now?”

“We wait for the copies to appear here.” Five states. “Then, we leave with the briefcase to the theatre. We have to check out if everything’s happening as it should be, like we’ve been calculating.”

So, they wait for the copies, to see them closer for the first time ever. They hope they don’t feel under surveillance or that the heavy weights don’t attack them right there. However, as time ticks on, they won’t come. They start getting worried, so much that Hazel is already taking out his small notebook and calculating possibilities. Then, of course, one of the newbies states the obvious.

“Maybe they’re already inside.” Bopha comments and the others sigh of relief. “We’ll have to wait for them to leave, to confirm it’s happening.”

Which would also mean that the Commission has destroyed this Academy too.

**~~~**

Klaus tries to cover his face better with the scarf. He tries to think about what to do next, about to click on his talkie to call his siblings, but a young girl gets inside and stares at him.

“What are you doing in the ladies restroom!?”

Klaus tries to excuse himself and thinks fast.

“I am a girl!” he protests with falseness. “Just because I heave beard and no breasts doesn’t mean I’m not. I feel like a girl and I consider myself one, so I am a girl!” he spits. “Don’t you dare to disrespect me like that, _bitch._ ”

The girl doesn’t know what’s going on there, so she enters one of the cubicles after sparing him a glance. He celebrates his fast thinking and gets outside the restrooms. Regina George would be proud of him.

He has to be careful now.

He immediately hides behind one of the balls displayers when he sees, on his right, the copies in the other side of the room, having their conversation, talking about their problems and what they have to do next. He doesn’t see Ben’s ghost. Diego’s copy is alive, and the rest is the same. Allison’s throat is cut too.

He sees his own copy eating popcorn. He has his jacket from the war. He wears the same shirt he wore that night, the same pants, the same style of hair. The tattoo. The dog tags. Everything the same.

Klaus, the original one, swallows deep and every time he sees a chance to go to the exit in front of him, one of them is standing up. Good thing that there’s a wall on his left. He sees a cardboard promoting ice cream two yards away.

_Remember to use your telekinesis._

Right.

Klaus focuses and clears his mind. It’s hard with the place he’s in and the people that are barely yards away from him, but he pushes through it with determination. Then, he sees as his forearms are softly glowing with blue light. And, when he moves his arms up to the cardboard, his lights turn brighter, and more when the cardboard moves towards him. Klaus grabs it and starts walking behind it discreetly, being on squat. It’s difficult, but he makes it to the door and runs away from there.

He runs to the street and looks around everywhere, not knowing what to expect now. He’s about to take his talkie when someone touches his shoulder; Klaus subconsciously turns around quickly and uses his ability to take the person away from him and against the wall. He stops that movement.

“Dude! You scared me.” Klaus claims to Luther, who shakes his head and breathes deeply. “Sorry about that...”

“You’re _buff_ since the infraworld, apparently.” Luther says. The others get closer to him. Allison’s eyes get teary and Vanya hugs him. “What happened in that place?”

Klaus eyes get bigger, without knowing how to explain. A lot happened back there.

“Well, just...” he huffs, gets away from his sister and looks at the trees over them. “Everything. I bumped into dad, he told me Trinity would tell me everything I needed to know.”

“What?” Luther frowns. “And-”

“She did.” Klaus states. “She teleported me herself to that other multiverse, to talk. She told me that _everything will turn out as it must_ , blah blah blah, she knew our dad in person, blah blah blah, she was rescued sometime, she doesn’t wanna tell anything about her master, to use my telekinesis, and to use what I learned in the infraworld.”

“And what happened there?” Allison asks, worried. He grinds his teeth, still that unnerving feeling.

“Well...” he mutters, still in pain because of what he saw. “Let’s say that the worse thing he did in his entire life wasn’t abusing his children. He killed Erin’s husband.”

“That guy was her husband?” Bopha asks, down but not surprised with that answer. “And _why_?”

“Because he would have been the key...” he breathes. “for not creating _us_. The gifted children. I still don’t know how the hell he did that.”

It somehow makes sense.

“Fuck.” Five hisses and cleaning his face despite it’s cold and night. “Well, did something else happen there?”

“Yeah.” he smiles with sadness. “I bumped into dad, as you know already, I bumped into Patch, into Diego...” The others get surprised. But then again, he spent a lot of time there compared to the real world. “... and into Dave.”

“Really?” Five asks. Klaus ignores him. _Forgive him if the end of the world is about to happen if it happens_. There are no sings that the world is coming to an end, but Klaus feels bad for his brother.

“Yeah.” he hisses with dry voice. He drinks water and puts the bottle back in his bag. “I think that’s all. Well, why don’t we go to the theatre already?”

“Aren’t we waiting for the copies to appear and make sure that everything’s happ-”

“We don’t have time for that anymore.” Five spits looking at his watch. “Crap!”

They all touch the briefcase at the same time and disappear into the air.

**~~~**

Waiting for the copies to get out of the bowling alley wasn’t totally useful because, like that, they were able to meet with Klaus sooner. They land right in front of the closed gates of the theatre. They hide behind one of the corners of the building. Gonzalo and Bopha are doing surveillance while the others talk, but they’re still able to listen.

“To sum up.” Five states after they check out of their guns and that other useful tools are fine. Klaus has decided to conjure Ben and Diego when they’re inside, so that the other Klaus doesn’t see them. “... we go in there discreetly before the concert begins. That’s around two more hours. We make sure nobody sees us. We make sure our copies don’t even get close to Vanya, and also with the shooters or the heavy weights. She can’t _break_ again. We have to warn each other about _every_ little movement, got it?”

The others nod. Not thinking about everything that could go wrong, or not even in anything that could go right, or the possible mistakes or the ramifications of possibilities. They decide to just _be_. Just jump into the danger.

Luther doesn’t want to lose any more of siblings today and he’s definitely not going to let it happen, no matter what. After feeling useless for going years and years to the Moon, without a purpose, used like a doll, he thought he’d lose himself for not feeling at home anymore. However, he has found himself in compensating the mistakes in his life, in protecting others, his family. That’s why he was harsh when Allison told him the truth. That’s why he broke down more than he expected when he lost Diego in his arms. Not losing anyone else tonight.

A lot of things have changed for Diego, not even counting his new state of existence. He didn’t feel guilty for not supporting his sister before, he just realized about it, said sorry and fought until the end to help her, anything she needed. Apart from that, he still tried to keep his siblings together despite everything. He had promised watching movies with his sister. He had promised helping Klaus conjuring Dave, but now things are different if he’s something to be conjured himself. But he’s okay. He’s at peace now. He has Patch by his side now, something he thought that couldn’t be possible.

Allison pushes through it. She’s been feeling desperate, at a loss and, especially, guilty. Luther was right... or he could have been right. Who knows what would have really happened if she hadn’t rumored him? He would still lock Vanya up in the vault, wouldn’t he? Who knows. They can’t know that, not anymore. What matters is going forward... and that’s what she’s going to do.

Well, Klaus has always been Klaus, isn’t he? He has felt lost. Desperate. Hanging on a very thin thread several times. A lost cause. Out of his mind, spacing out more. An enormous pit in his stomach whenever he thought about this emotion of loss blocking him and that could still block him after they make this right. But then, in the infraworld, when he was touching the blue energy of memories thanks to Daniel’s bridge, he realized. Like the old man mentioned in the night when Ben was doing surveillance, he has necrokinesis, he was born with it and lived a shitty life by having this ability. This aspect of his life has made him like he is and that sense makes him vulnerable and giddy at the same time. He’s content where he is, so he has accepted that part of his powers and will definitely have a hard time trying to master his new discovered power. And, given his necrokinesis involves talking to dead people, as crude as it is, he has to lose people to balance and appreciating this aspect of his life and having people he loves around him. Grace had sung it to him when he was six.

**_“Lose whom you have loved the most, later you’ll know what you have found.”_ **

He didn’t find Diego or Dave or his dad in the infraworld. He didn’t find the answers of the end of the world or the reason for all of this. He found the reasons about himself.

He found himself.

Five has been a beautiful disaster. He has been ambitious, at a loss, desperate, defeated. He has kept the truth about one thing or two and he had consequences about that. He accepted his reality by feeling that sense of defeat and, despite it hurt like hell, it’s been kind of useful. He has never considered himself a hero. Maybe when they were teenagers, but not anymore; he’s far away from that. He has also learned that, despite being very proud of how he is, he doesn’t think he’s better or worse than anyone, but he’s not going to say that out loud. Still Five, always Five. He still has so much to learn and he’s willing to do that by his siblings’ side and maybe learning from Trinity too. Not because she knows a lot more than she shows, but because she looks like one of those people that can be interesting to get to know in deep.

Basically, Ben has been the glue that has stuck them together right before they got apart, which they’ve wanted to do several times. He’s tired of being a ghost and, sometimes, he feels useless because he would want to do so much more, but he decides to leave that feeling for after they avoid this shit. He’d want to help Klaus to conjure Dave in anything he needs; he’s even willing to go back to the infraworld if he needs that, but he doesn’t know what’s going to happen, especially when Dave himself has told Klaus the fact that they don’t even know he’s going to get to see him ever again, not being able to promise something like that. But Ben doesn’t worry about that. In the meantime, he guards the back doors of the theatre, waiting for him and Diego to be conjured together. At least, he’s not a lonely ghost anymore.

Then, there’s Vanya, who feels the pit in her stomach extend to her limbs. Her forehead starts to sweat and his fingers are hot, like burning. She keeps it together, though. After everything they’ve been through, she doesn’t feel apart from her own family, not with this sense she’s not even wanted in a place, something Diego used to tell her a lot. But now, despite he’s dead, Diego is a clear sign of change. Also Luther. She won’t ever forget what he did to her, manipulating, choking her in her most vulnerable moment, locking her up, looking at her like if she was the worst person to ever exist on Earth and still wanting to attack her to stop her. Stating that he’s been stubborn is falling short. Nevertheless, she has accepted that side of him and got used to it. His stubbornness has also been useful for her to be straightforward and accept things as they are, which has made Vanya more grounded and focusing on what matters without breaking down. She needed Luther as a brother and he redeemed himself correctly. That’s enough for her.

They nod at the same time.

“Fine.” Five mutters. Every one of them touch his hands, his hair, his waist, anything. He feels kind of overwhelmed, but he gets over it. Not something important to worry about right now. “Go.”

Five teleports them inside.

**~~~**

Once they’re in, Hazel immediately guides them through a high platform that’s used to light the secondary spotlights of the stage. They barely fit together, especially after Klaus conjures his brothers, but the platform is strong and stable. Hazel takes some binoculars and sees better what everyone sees.

The seats of the place are totally dark, but some lights focus on the stage because there are two technicians talking about the future concert, rambling about the correct positions of the seats for the musicians and the first chair.

Vanya remembers how full of hatred she was in this moment in their timeline, but also how excited she was playing for the public for the first time ever, or at least, something as big as this. She didn’t have any of her loved beings attending to it, but she was content having this moment for herself, showing her talent without anything holding her back. Everything changed when her own family decided to attend the concert, but in the worst way possible.

That’s not like anymore, but her copy doesn’t know this. The copy still thinks her family hates her.

How are they going to make the copies away from her without themselves getting close?

She’s about to express that feeling, but Five looks at his watch quickly.

“Okay.” he mutters softly. “It’s half past nine. We waited more than we expect in the corner next to the bowling place. Haz, what were you doing?”

“Well...” he tries to remember. “At this time, I was _discussing_ with the Handler and with Agnes right there in danger because Cha-Cha... well, I provoked a car accident in our new mission.”

“That’s why she was bleeding?” Klaus asks.

“Yeah, I had something to do.” Hazel chuckles. “The thing is that me, Agnes and Erin were in that motel. I wonder what will happen now with Erin if her conscience followed us all the way here. I don’t think she’s letting her death happen or to Hazel leave to the past.”

**~~~**

Just when Hazel points at Erin with his gun, the door of the room is open and they all look at the two people that get inside and close the door. Erin opens her eyes with amusement and surprise, but Hazel doesn’t understand anything. Poor Agnes can expect anything from this day.

“Well, well, well...” Erin chuckles. “Look who’s here.” She looks at the short, angry girl with amusement.” Hello, Trinity. Didn’t see you since I tried to make you fight the Hargreeves.”

“Not convinced by your bullshit, sorry.” she spits. She’s about to shoot an energy beam to her heart, but her master stops her forearm abruptly. She looks at him and his eyes are indecipherable. “What are you doing?” she hisses.

“No killing, remember?” the master glances at her with determination. “No killing anymore, that’s why you ended with me.”

“I didn’t kill on purpose and you know that...” Trinity hisses and Hazel clears his throat, pointing now at Trinity. However, this new girl frowns, offended because of the gun.

“Excuse me.” he says with sarcasm. “Who the hell are you two?”

“None of your business.” the master says and looks back at Erin, not amused anymore, but desperate, trying to get her way in the situation. “You.” he points dangerously at Erin with his finger. “You’re not getting away with this anymore.”

“What are you doing here?” Erin asks him. “This is not your multiverse.”

“I know.” he hisses. “But I swore to protect people.”

“Does that include letting Hazel kill me?”

The master looks at Hazel.

“Yeah.” he says and, just like that, the master claps two fingers together and Hazel and Agnes are teleported outside, without the briefcase, not being able to go to the past. “Now. Happy?” She nods. She has been able to be saved in this parallel universe, at least. “Well, not so happy after the little thing we’ve managed to do.”

“And what is that?”

“The apocalypse is going to be prevented at a great cost.” he makes sure, even threatening her with his covered look with the dark blindfold. “But it’s gonna be prevented anyway. You can’t do _anything_ about it. You’re gonna be in jail forever because we’ve created a fake ID for you in the Government... and _Erin Halliday_ is gonna be in life sentence in jail for attempting to kill the Hargreeves since they were born and destroying their home. Their Academy.”

Trinity frowns. It’s the first time Erin Hargreeves looks truly surprised and even desperate.

“N-No.” she hisses, taking a step back. Her face falls down. “No. It’s a bluff.”

“You know we’re desperate to stop you, Erin, why would we lie to you?” Trinity hisses and looks at her master. “What do we do? Don’t lie. Tell me what’s gonna be.”

The master hesitates. He had agreed not to tell Trinity anything beyond her encounter with Luther.

“Erin has to be stopped in the theatre.”

“We have to free her!?” Trinity protests and she hates the way Erin seems to celebrate. “Why?”

“The Hargreeves are gonna be the ones who prevent the apocalypse. Remember?” the master regretfully says. Trinity understands. The Hargreeves are going to prevent the apocalypse, but who’s going to stop. She suddenly notices that her master looks at Erin and hates what he’s about to do with his two fingers. “I hate doing this.”

Trinity screams when Erin is teleported outside. Trinity clenches her jaw and looks at the floor.

“I trust them.” Trinity stutters after a while. “But... you’ve said the Hargreeves are gonna stop the apocalypse, but not _her_.” She shivers. “What do I do?”

The master knows the consequences of even one magician being in something involved with the end of the world, but there’s no other way. He prepares his two fingers. He has more things to do, but he knows she can do this.

“Go.” he tells Trinity.

**~~~**

It’s already a quarter to ten, fifteen minutes to the concert, and people are already getting inside. They hide themselves better by putting a blanket hanging in front of them, so they look through it to watch how people get inside and take their seats. Vanya’s copy must be on her way, about to arrive by bus, about to get ready.

Two minutes later, they see in backstage that an old sir is talking to a short girl with dark suit.

“That’s me.” Vanya notes. She’s wearing the exact same thing she wore in the original timeline, the same hair, the same pants, the same all. Her eyes are also glowing, the same hatred, the same willingness to share her talent with the public and everyone who’s willing to listen to her. She analyzes the stage but doesn’t get to it yet. Instead, she puts her violin against the wall and washes her hands next to other musicians. Well, actually, she’s avoiding them as much as possible. “She shouldn’t be like that...” she says while biting her scarf.

“Why?” Hazel asks attentively.

“I was like that because Luther locked me up.” she says to everyone. “She wasn’t... Right? I mean... What happened here?”

Klaus thinks. He just overheard the conversation from the copies, not paying too much attention to it, but maybe there’s something important from it.

“Crap!” Klaus bites. The others look at him. “No... It makes sense too...”

“What?” Luther asks, frowning.

“Remember when Erin told us consciences from the original timeline could be transferred to the copies from here?” he says and his family nods. “The Handler did that with her own... but she could have also done that with Vanya’s copy.”

The others stay mouth-open. Of course. If there’s anyone who could do something like this right now, it’s Erin, with that kind of ace up the sleeve.

Someone like the other Vanya, traumatized by her horrible father, manipulated by her sister, rejected by her family, would be totally beyond shock receiving the original Vanya’s memories: being choked in the middle of her breakdown, being locked up, being attacked in her concert. Of course, the copy must be like this for reliving her own pain she didn’t really get to suffer, but it’s enough to light that sparkle.

“Son of a bitch!” Five hisses caressing his hair. Luther huffs and Ben hits softly his forehead around the wall. “Okay... Now... Shit. She could be like a time bomb again.”

“And the others could still attack her seeing her like this.” Luther supposes. “Despite my copy didn’t really do anything. But, the other Vanya still attacked Allison, so the first thing he’s gonna do is attacking her in her concert.”

“This... This is what we’re gonna do.” Five says after two minutes. “We still have to keep everyone away from her.” Vanya is listening carefully, but she notices something that makes her be on edge. “No guns to her, just to the shooters or the heavy weights, but with these ones we’ll have to use our powers.”

“All of us?” Allison asks, unconvinced, for everything she has caused with her ability. Five knows that and he has known that for a long time. “But-”

“Okay, listen, Allison...” Five takes her shoulder. “I know you feel guilty for everything you’ve done so far, but look where we are. Are you doing all of this out of guilt?”

Allison takes a deep breath and shivers.

“Not anymore.” she claims. “I still feel like I’m not ready for any of this...”

“Look at us.” Five says and she does that. Her entire family is right there. The others expect her spaced out sister look at her, reassuring. “Do you think we’re prepared for this?”

Allison hesitates.

“Well, no.”

“Then, let’s do this.” Five states, nodding, and putting his hand over the center, in the middle of all of them. The others put their open palms too and wait for Vanya to do the same, but she won’t stop looking through the hole in the curtain. “Vanya?”

”No, no, no, no...” she hisses and her sister gets closer carefully and takes one of her shoulders. She tries to look where she’s looking at. “No... My... The two friends I met at the ice cream shop... They’re here.”

The others get closer to the now-bigger hole of the curtain and look through. They see as a handsome and tall man with no beard and black hair sits in the background (there must have been almost no free seats when they bought tickets) next to a beautiful woman in a long, tight-fitting red dress.

“What about them?” Five says without understanding.

“That dress is beautiful.” Allison mutters.

“Damn, what a _menage à trois_ you’re building up, Van.” Klaus comments and Ben has to hit his shoulder to make him focus. “Sorry.” he mutters.

“They realized I was Vanya.” she stutters. “They obviously don’t know it’s two of us in the same world. They must have seen an add for the concert and they’re here to see _me._ ”

“Aww...” Klaus whispers with tenderness and Ben hits him again. “Sorry!...”

“Shit!” Five hisses. “We still have to focus, okay? As soon as the copies arrive, your other self will explode, so people will run away anyway. Try not to worry about them.” Still doubting about her situation with her _couple_ , she nods, hesitating. Then, Five turns to all of his siblings. “Remember. Don’t be impulsive until it’s _very_ necessary.” Vanya remembers that. “Protect the people. Protect the copies, but without letting them see you. Take them away from Vanya, so that she doesn’t snap and take her power to the limit.” He sighs. He’s good as speeches, but he doesn’t know what to say right now. The moment of truth creates a pit in his stomach. It frightens him. “No idea what’s gonna happen. Despite the magicians have insisted that we win this one... we could _not_ , you all know that, right?”

“Of course.” Diego mutters. “Look what happened in the second event.”

“Yeah.” Five stutters. “This is it, guys. This is the end, whether we do it okay or not. Let’s focus, fine?”

They nod and look through the hole at the same time, with everything ready and scared and willing all at the same time. Klaus and Ben take each other by their shoulders. Diego and Allison take Vanya’s hands. Hazel nods to Luther. Bopha and Gonzalo rub their hands. Five fixes his look over the public, already on their seats. Including Laura and Mark.

The ten of them are terrified. But, being the family they are and everything they’ve been through, they also jump into the danger no matter it’s facing them with everything it has.

At 10 pm and one minute, the conductor appears in front of the closed curtains and thanks everyone to be there. While he explains, Five points at Vanya’s copy, already sitting in her place in the center of the stage but also rounded by other important musicians. He didn’t know someone could seem so spaced out and concentrated at the same time, but she is.

The curtains are opened, and people applaud, just like in the original timeline.

Vanya, the original one, can’t help but notice how in the seats in the back Mark, smiling, murmurs something to Laura, probably mumbling _that’s our girl!_

The copy starts with a violin solo of two minutes until the other instruments join. Luther’s skin shivers. That’s what he missed? It’s no time for focusing on guilt, not anymore, but it’s hard. He promises himself something and it’s buying a new violin to her sister when everything is over, right after watching movies with Klaus... and forgiving Allison.

“Let’s keep the entrance under surveillance.” Five says out loud, but not screaming. And they do that, for half an hour. Then, they watch as a woman slowly gets inside by the entrance and walks by one of the hallways of the seats, looking mesmerized at the first chair. “Allison.” They all look at the second copy, attentive to her sister in the stage, and they smile at each other. “Now!”

“Now!?” Gonzalo exclaims, without understanding, nervous all of a sudden. He doesn’t know exactly that Luther and Diego’s copies are going to appear from behind.

“Now!” Five teleports with Gonzalo down, behind the stage, behind the concert. They both analyze the zone with a lot of adrenalin in their veins. Five teleports again once he spots Diego’s copy, who’s hiding, and points him with a gun before he can move. “Stay still.”

Diego’s copy raises his hands when Five, the original, points at his heart. He can perfectly deviate the bullet or roll over the air, but being barely two feet from him? He’s not so sure.

On the other hand, still listening to the concert in the background, Gonzalo runs and makes Luther’s copy stumble, one, two, three, four times. The other Luther decides to stay on the floor when Gonzalo points at his heart with his gun.

“Stay there, _hijo de puta._ ”

“Hey.” ghost Diego mocks when they get down with the small stairs and behind the stage, getting close to the other two. “In any case, it would be _hijo de puto.”_

None of the two copies understand something. The copy one remains on the floor and the copy two against the wall. The originals remain with well-discrete clothes, so they don’t suspect anything. Klaus’ clothes are less discrete, so he hides behind his siblings.

“Who the hell are you all?” the other Diego asks, frowning and staring at the gun.

“Remember Reginald Hargreeves?” Five hisses. “Well, he knew more than you will ever know.”

Because even the Reginald from the original timeline knew more than they will ever know.

“Do you know our dad?” the Luther from the floor asks, out loud.

“Of course we did.” Five responds, looking at him. “You were going to attack your sister. Not gonna work, trust us.”

Just when Five turns to his family, the other Diego takes advantage and takes his gun. He fires at Five. Luckily, Gonzalo saves the little man by taking Five’s body in time.

Unluckily, that triggers the first chair and makes her snap.

People start running away.

“Crap!” Five shouts. “Let’s keep the seats clear before the Commission comes.”

Luther tries to stand up from the floor, but Klaus uses his telekinesis as a barrier.

“What do we do with these two!?” Bopha asks and Five nods to her. “Fine...”

Luther takes Luther against the wall as well and Bopha uses her plants to tie Luther and Diego to the pipes behind them. The originals get off the stage by the side instead of bumping to the scenario. That would trigger Vanya’s ability more.

Allison’s copy, who was in the middle corridor, stares at them with confusion. She’s about to walk to her own sister, but that's also dangerous. The original one gets closer to herself and speaks.

“I heard a rumor you’re gonna help us by speaking again.”

Her other self’s throat shines and she touches her neck. When she takes off the bandage, it’s like the wound hadn’t existed.

“I-I can...”

“You can.”

She seems surprised. However, she doesn’t say anything else, like asking why there’s another version of herself facing her, but the rumor contained words for her to help them... and helping them means no questions for now.

“What can I do here?” the copy asks, confused as other people get closer to them as well. She’s smart enough to figure out that the tall guy with ski mask is Luther, but not hers. Although, he has never been hers. He is his own person, so she promises to herself to tell him the truth after this.

“Keeping your own siblings away from your sister.” Five answers. “Also, the Commission is coming.”

“Yeah, the shooters from the bowl-”

“Not just them.” he hisses, sweating. Blonde Allison doesn’t get it. “They have heavy weights. People with powers.”

Normally, he wouldn’t have told something similar to one of the copies, but she’s manipulated. Also, if the heavy weights are coming with everything they have, the copies have to be prepared mentally.

“Fine.” the copy mumbles. “I guess...”

Something is heard behind them. A guy with shiny white hands, standing from one of the balconies with seats about ten yards from the floor, elevates his hands over them and a wave of snow is shot. They’re embraced by a great wave of cold in their bodies that paralyzes them some seconds. Luckily, Klaus has managed to react in time and he has used an energy shield to stop the snow to him and Ben. Next, he makes him tangible; Ben runs from a side closer to the balcony and takes the icebender (who has turned out to be a man) with one of his tentacles. However, they start to fight between each other (Ben still from the floor and the ice guy from the balcony) because this tall, blonde guy tries to freeze his tentacles. It hurts a little.

In the meantime, the originals run discretely close to the stage, but not getting on it. Then, three people get inside. The other Five, the other ghost Ben and the other Klaus.

“There they are!”

Despite the originals are at the other side of the room, this other Ben frowns when he sees as his own original one tries to endure the ice on his powers, but the heavy weight is really good. The original Klaus notices as his other self screams to his Ben _isn’t that you!?_

However, these three new copies have to hide behind a stall immediately because the shooters arrive. These workers, these guards, are helped by the bullets created by the metalbender.

“What the hell are those weirdos?” Five’s copy exclaims, covering his ears.

There’s no more time for questions because the Afro-American girl, still on the balcony (close to the ice guy fighting against Ben), points her hand at Vanya’s copy in the stage. Original Vanya runs under the edge of the balcony of the heavy weights and focuses on all of the sounds existing on the place to create an expansive wave to make that girl unconscious. However, that girl is stronger than they thought because she immediately stands up. Vanya grabs her in the middle of the air with a white stream of energy and shakes her, trying to knock her out for a while.

The original Luther pulls a seat from the floor with strength and gives it to Gonzalo to use it as a shield, who runs around the bullets to stop them with the chair and also to protect the copies.

“Rumor?” their Allison speaks, but her other self doubts. Knowing they ended up there because of getting everything in life with manipulation. “Come on. Your sister needs you. Rumor?”

Allison takes her own hand.

“Rumor.”

The two Allisons slip against the right wall of the stage close to the stairs, to get up to the balconies and manipulate the shooters into killing themselves.

Klaus hasn’t realized when ghost Diego got away from the ice to throw his weapons to the shooters with Hazel. Bopha is still next to him, but she closes her eyes and has her open palms on the floor. He doesn’t understand why, until two big trunks of trees grow from the ceiling and grab the heavy weights the same way his Ben is doing.

Klaus stays there to watch over the other Vanya for a while, until he sees newer shooters attack several times to his brother’s tentacles, so Ben screams, keeps his ability inside and faints... if a ghost can really faint. He runs towards him despite he falls in the middle of the main corridor of the room, close to one of Bopha's trees.

“Ben!” he screams, taking his brother in his arms. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah...” he mumbles, moving just a little bit and sitting like the other man does. “You know ghosts can’t die, don’t you?”

Klaus chuckles but stops abruptly when he sees the copies of Klaus, Five and Ben getting close to them. Crap. This wasn’t supposed to happen. What now? What is he going to do, especially when his other self is staring at him like a random person looks at a ghost? He’s staring at his chest. He doesn’t have dog tags.

“I knew it!” the other Five hisses. Their one is helping the family as much as possible despite the shoulder, but this one is desperate to know why there are clones of themselves. “Why is this happening?”

“We couldn’t save the world in our timeline.” Klaus answers, looking at his own, who doesn’t understand anything. He knows how he’s feeling. “So, we went back to change the timeline throughout the decades, including 2019.” He has to rest his weight on a chair because the Earth shakes. Goddamn Earthbender. They can’t even see him right now.

”The...” Klaus’ copy stutters, pointing at his chest. The original one makes a pity face. “The dog...”

“Don’t worry. I have an anklet instead.”

The copy seems to calm down. He’s sad because he thought he would lose his own dog tags somehow, but that’s not going to happen if the copies don’t time travel this time.

“We turned back in time to help our sister for real and avoid events in past decades to stop this apocalypse.” Ben summarizes.

“Do you know what’s gonna happen?” Five demands, ambitious and accelerated. If he knew.

“No.” the Ben in the floor says. “We have to take these villains away from Vanya, yours.”

The copies notice that, indeed, there's a clone of their sister shooting waves of energy under the balcony.

“There’s no time for that!” the other Five says. “She’s a frigging time bomb! Wake up!”

“We’ve been through more than you!” Ben in the floor protests. “Ambush in her won’t work! You wake up!” The copy of Five doesn’t want to hear any of this bullshit anymore, so he tries to teleport away in order to find his own clone. In the meantime, the four of them keep trying to avoid danger, in the middle of Vanya’s cataclysm, fighting not away from each other. “Klaus, are you-?”

Between the benders of ice and metal, they create an ice bullet together without being spotted and they fire it to the original Klaus. However, his copy’s arms are suddenly glowing blue and, without even knowing what’s going on, he makes his brother tangible so that he uses his tentacles. The original brothers hide behind a column to take a breath. This was longer that they thought.

“This also happened in our original timeline!” Ben shouts to his brother, and then, he runs into the battle again.

Klaus looks at his Vanya, who’s trying to protect her closest family with energy fields while strangling some heavy weights (the Earthbender and another one) with white streams of light. He can tell she’s hanging on a thread. He looks at the other Vanya, playing her music like if it’s the last thing she can do on Earth, like if she was alone with her violin in the entire world, even adding a dramatic tone to the fight between the shooters, the families and the heavy weights. She’s hanging on a thread too. He can see as her suit turns into white, like in the original timeline. He takes his talkie and clicks the number one repeatedly, until his brother takes the call.

“Lu!”

 _“What!?”_ he says and a punch is overheard, meaning he has just kicked someone’s ass. He can’t see the big guy in the battle. He must be trying to run after someone behind the corridors.

“The other Vanya is on edge again!”

 _“Crap!”_ he shouts. _“Let’s reunite in the intermediate level of the balconies!”_

Klaus has to create a shield to protect himself against the bullets to slip out of the room and go upstairs after he makes his dead brothers intangible, so that they can follow him. The Allisons see that and little by little, they convince the original Vanya to keep calm and go with them to the intermediate level, without any rumors. However, Five, Hazel, Bopha, and Gonzalo don’t get to arrive.

“Okay...” Luther says out of breath, just like the rest of them, taking the sweat off their foreheads. “It’s...” He looks at his broken watch. “Shit...” The copies all have seen in their own clones, so he takes off his scarf under the other Allison’s glance. He swallows. In the middle of this fucking mess, he can’t help but wonder what they’re going to do if the end of the world still happens. Forgive her just like that? Klaus looks at his watch. “Okay, thanks, it’s around half past eleven. Time’s faster than it feels.”

“Next movement?” the original Allison asks.

“Vanya still is like a timebomb right now.” Luther says, breathing slowly to bring back a proper breath. “We... I know it doesn’t seem so, but we can do this.”

Vanya reflects on it. They've been racking their brains trying to figure out how to stop her. Allison offered herself to talk to the other Vanya, but they haven't thought about another solution.

“I can try to talk to myself.” Vanya states, really sure, convinced, her siblings are immediately worried. Vanya takes a deep breath again and shivers. “I know I can be hurt... and a lot. But think about it, whose support does she need right now?”

The other Allison is the one who answers.

“Herself.”

“It could work.” Luther thinks about it, listening to people screaming in the background and they hope all of the public could have escaped. After everything he’s done to his sister, he can’t help worrying about her. He tightens his eyelids before opening his eyes and taking her shoulders. She looks astonished for this gesture. “I know you can do that. We know you can do this. But... be careful, okay?” Vanya nods, completely sure. She’s scared shitless too, but now, with her family truly by her side, she knows she can do this. “Try to get closer slowly to the stage. Maybe start by-”

A noise is listened at their right side and they try to hide the best they can. Diego’s copy is fighting against Cha-Cha. He must have freed himself from the plants easily with his knives and gone after her, which means the other Luther is also free.

Which means he’s planning to attack her sister.

“We have to go!”

The originals, with Allison’s copy, run back to the stairs and go to the fight. When they arrive, Diego is already around there, looking defeated, meaning he must have already forgiven Cha-Cha (who must have already gone out of the building to call her boss, who’s alive right now). The originals see as all of the copies (except the one on the stage) are staring at something in the floor. Original Vanya runs when she sees what’s going on.

In the center of the middle hallway, there’s the metalbenderholding Laura Benson with one, strong arm, and the other hand with the shape of a knife touching Laura's neck on the floor. The icebender is holding Mark Johnson and Hazel with both hands on their heads, threatening to freeze their brains. The three of the victims look scared to the limit and Vanya can’t help but staring back at her two friends. She can’t react. They must be wondering why there are two Vanyas in the room glowing white, why there’s a fainted girl on the floor with plants in her hands and another passed out man that has been running in the room from end to end; but, what they fear the most right now is losing their lives. Hazel looks more calmed. There isn't any more heavy weights or shooters because the rest of the workers couldn’t be up to the level of the fight.

There’s another group two yards away, not moving, which is the copies except Allison, wondering what’s going on, especially when they see their clones walking slowly to the hallway; they stop when they see Hazel, Laura and Mark are in danger.

“What is going on?” Diego, the alive one, mutters, looking to both of the other groups: the hostages and the clones.

“We have to stop Vanya!” Luther’s copy screams and the original one takes a step forward.

“No!” he screams. He looks at himself, having problems with self-identity. “We’re from the original timeline, from the past, we’ve already gone through this same thing... and attacking her won’t work!”

Luther looks around himself, wondering if there’s another way. Vanya is still growing her power little by little, she’s even barely visible inside her own bubble of ability. Meanwhile, her original clone won’t take her eyes off her friends and starts to cry because of the helplessness she’s feeling. She kneels on the floor because she’s feeling weak and her sister tries to take her in her arms despite her shivering.

“Please!” she screams to the metal and ice benders, who frown at her with determination. “I know all of this shit is our fault, our father’s, but, please, let them go!”

“Vanya...” Mark gets to mutter, even when the ice man tightens his grip over his head. “I don’t know what’s happening, honey, but do what you have to do...”

“Let them go!” Vanya begs, even feeling more desperate than she felt when being locked up. In the vault, she was worried about herself and her own sake, but now, three lives depend on her next few words. “Please, let them go!”

“We’ll let them go when you let the apocalypse happen.” the girl hisses, caressing her knife on Laura’s neck. “Now or never.”

“Do what you have to d-” Hazel is interrupted by the blond man behind him. In the meantime, the original Five appears in the room (after killing other shooters) and starts walking silently behind the heavy weights with a knife among the seats, meaning that he’s run out of bullets. Their original Five looks hurt, bleeding again, holding his own left shoulder because it hurts a lot, but he’s still determined to kill one of the two heavy weights.

“Let them go!” Vanya cries.

There's no more time. The original Five teleports with the force he has left and buries his knife between the shoulder and the neck of the girl, freeing Laura, who coughs for the pain of the hold. However, the ice man reacts in time and freezes Hazel’s face entirely, but Ben’s copy has reacted and killed the blond heavy weight with one of his tentacles, throwing him at the wall. He’s definitely dead; he has a hole in his stomach that looks horrific.

The originals run to Hazel and kneel on the floor with desperation.

“Haz...” Luther hisses, holding his body and touching his face all over. This is like what happened with Diego back at the abandoned building of the old property all over again. He hates it. “Hazel...”

Hazel barely blinks and he coughs. His face is totally pale and his breath is completely freezing. His hands are white too and his skin is losing color. Klaus sheds tears. He’s feeling as he’s getting inside the infraworld.

“Be... Be careful, ‘kay?”

Allison sheds tears too, kneeling closer to his body and stroking his cold face. 

“We will.” Luther makes sure and he’s about to hold his hand like he did with Diego, his body doesn’t react to the hold. His eyes are open, empty and frozen, just like the icebender’s smashed against the wall. He’s not moving at all. The originals bow their heads and keep quiet. “God...”

They hug briefly his corpse. Despite the pain, Vanya gets to drag over the floor to both of her friends. And despite the confussion, the hurt and the desperation, they hug her back with strength. Vanya buries her face on Laura’s neck and Mark kisses her temple. Then, she moves away quickly and murmurs them to get away and something else two. At least, those two are safe.

And, in their defense, they _do_ get away, but just hiding behind a column and kneeling behind some seats under the skylight of the theater. With a perfect sight of everything but not close to danger.

Vanya gets back with her family, and both groups, the originals and the copies, look to each other.

“This is it.” Vanya mutters. Looking at the stage, at her own one, like a time bomb. She takes a deep breath and holds her sister’s hand. “I have to talk to myself. That’s the only way.”

Allison knows. She takes off her annoying wig and looks at her straight in the eyes while the others touch her body, her shoulders, in support.

“We know.” Allison says without voice, shedding tears again, trembling, fearing for her family, for her sister. “I know. Just... B-Be careful, okay? We don’t wanna lose you.”

Vanya manages to crack a smile despite their current situation. It’s five minutes to midnight, as Five looks in his watch.

“I’m not planning on dying anytime soon.”

They hug her briefly before they let her go. The copies don’t do anything at the moment because they want to see if this actually works and the other Luther is totally unconvinced.

Vanya gets closer carefully to the stage; easy, attentive steps, and enduring the way the copy’s energy makes her feel, feeling that inside her soul too. But, at the moment, not using her powers, no fury, no pain, no desperation, no hatred towards herself. Not anymore.

Vanya carefully gets on the stage by the small stairs but stops at the edge of the scenario, not too close but enough. She tries to ignore the violin in order to speak out loud.

“Vanya.” she murmurs. And, because her powers are tied to emotions provoked by sounds, her other self stops playing, but the powers don't just turn off. Next, her copy moves her glance, looks straight at her own eyes... and the sight shocks her. She knows how she’s feeling and it’s like feeling it all over again. She’s going to change that right now. She needs herself. “See?” she mutters with calm and when she takes a step forward, Allison trembles. “See. Focus on me, okay? I can help you. I’m _you_ , from another world. I can help you.”

She doesn’t say anything... but at least, she has stopped playing her violin. Her right hand is holding the bow and the left one is holding the instrument, holding both objects with strength, sign of hatred and because she’s on edge as well.

“I know I can help you.” she continues. She stares at herself and the copy looks paused and about to fall to the abyss at any second. She’s hanging on a thread that could break like with scissors any second. “Look at me. You’re me. I’ve been right where you are. You can get better.” The copy just stares at her, attentive and with empty eyes. The original one feels like crying for the second time in the day, but she endures for herself, she remains strong because her other self needs her. “Please....” She takes another step forward, now being only two yards away from her. She doesn’t move despite the white energy being all over the stage. “Please.” she whispers, raising her hand towards her. “I’ll help you. Let me help you. Look where I am. You can do this.”

The copy looks confused for receiving reassuring words, something she’s barely received in her life, and she’s listening from herself, not from her family, or from a fucker that is alive in the hospital being arrested, or any parent. No, she’s hearing reassuring words from herself. Maybe, and only maybe... she can really do this.

The copy is about to reach her hand, tentative, carefully and just a little bit trustful, but they don’t notice that and agonizing metalbender gets to stand up with blood all around herself, make a bullet from her metallic hand and shoot it right next to both Vanyas’ ears. The original just falls to the floor of the stage because of the strong noise and covering her ears, but the copy snaps and shoots her big stream of energy towards the ceiling.

**~~~**

Klaus didn’t see the dying metalbender stand up and shoot close to the Vanyas, but he reacted as fast as he could to run towards the end of the stage, stick his back to the wall, point his hands at the ceiling and trying to stop the energy from her sister’s copy. Vanya’s copy is still pointing her chest up. Klaus holding onto that stream of energy for dear life, but he can’t endure much longer. He hasn’t eaten anything in hours, he can’t hold much longer.

“Crap!” Five screams. Everyone gets close to Klaus, but they don’t know what to do here.

“Hold on!” the awake Vanya screams. She’s about to stand up, to use her telekinesis too to help her brother, but Klaus falls to the floor, the energy breaks the glass of the ceiling and it shoots out to the sky.

“SHIT!” both Fives scream.

The original Five thinks about something. Maybe grabbing something heavy enough to stop the energy, like a shield, or blocking it with something else, teleporting Klaus... He looks at the copy of Klaus’ not even aware he has telekinesis, her awake Vanya, who’s in shock because she doesn’t know how to react, and his Klaus, on the floor, being held by Luther’s strong arms. And also, the other fainted Vanya is being held by her sister on the floor of the stage, just like in the original timeline.

Going back to 1952 all over again when timeline has already been changed?

No. He’s tired. And it wouldn't work. They don’t have any of the Hazels either.

The original Five kneels in the floor next to tired Klaus, who takes his hand and looks at his eyes.

“I forgive you.”

Five freezes and feels more defeated than ever. He loses his breath. Klaus is Klaus and always will be; he’s been through a lot and through many things in life. He recognizes a lost cause when he sees it.

This is the end.

**~~~**

The copies, despite not knowing what the hell is going on, stare at the ray of energy going to the sky. They also recognize when the end of the world is happening. The Fives could teleport them back in time to 1952 all over again, but the events in this timeline have already been changed, so it would be useless. Also, they don’t know this, but they won’t have Hazel’s help this time because the original one is dead and his copy has escaped without the briefcase.

They also realize this is the end.

Just like in the original timeline, Klaus’ copy holds onto the dog tags. They close their eyes and Luther’s copy holds Diego’s copy’s hand. The original Allison swallows deep and looks at her Luther.

“I forgive you too.” he mutters.

**~~~**

Vanya didn’t put too much trust in all of this when they started the missions throughout the decades, both because she didn’t trust her family truly by then and because she didn’t trust herself at all. Getting over this emotion of distrust that blocked her? That seemed impossible. Her distrust to her family and to herself had reasons.

But, just like Ben told her after they failed to save Meritech Prosthetics, they’ve also fucked it up several times, once and again, all over the decades and in their _normal_ lives in the original timeline too. They are like they are, so they’ve also fucked up trying to avoid the original apocalypse and also with the events from the past, and the ones from 2019. They’ve also fucked up among each other, but that’s okay, because they love each other despite the mistakes, even if those mistakes are unforgettable. Because, even when she didn’t want Luther close, she let him to little by little, and by trusting him she started to be more grounded and learned to trust herself too in the process.

She trusts herself thanks to Luther. Who’d say that after everything he made to her?

Original Vanya looks at her copy on the stage, fainted. She remembers how Luther started to bring trust back by helping her with her powers because he realized she wasn’t the one who has scary, but her own abilities. Also, he helped her trust herself by talking about random things, like how hot was the weather in Manhattan in year 2001, how they both agreed that a bright yellow sweater looked horrible in Klaus (and laughed together when Klaus pretended to be offended), or, for example, when she was guarding the computers room with Luther and they talked about movies, about how she didn’t remember much from _Spiderman 1_ and he told her about that film, about the struggles of someone so ordinary as Peter Parker and how he coped with his new powers thanks to his uncle.

**_“With great power comes great responsibility.”_ **

Vanya knows what to do.

**~~~**

Allison, the original, takes off her sweat, waiting for all to end. She kneels down next to his exhausted brother and holds his hand and the other one holds Luther’s. They all kneel in the floor, the copies too. She hopes it doesn’t hurt too much, at least, if there’s one thing they can ask the apocalypse, it’s that one.

“It’ll be painful?” Luther asks Five, who takes a deep breath and sits to the closest seat of the empty public. He sighs and hesitates. Waiting for the end feels absurd.

“No.” he manages to mutter. “Just... close your eyes before the Moon crashes with the Earth. There’ll be a lot of light.” They take a deep breath. “It’ll take some seconds... just... don’t hold your breaths, it’ll feel worse.”

“Can you make us intangible?” Diego asks Klaus.

“We are already.” Ben reminds. “He’s hurt and exhausted.” They sit better on the floor. “I hope that the Handler enjoys her mom.” He says that with a funny tone, but frowning. Then, sideways, he notices as their Vanya stands up slowly and walks to the center of the stage, looking at the broken glass, looking at the stream getting close to the Moon. He doesn’t understand what she’s doing, until she takes two steps back and takes a deep breath. “Vanya?” he asks, standing up, and her siblings do the same. She looks at her family with melancholy. “Vanya!”

She crosses her arms and when she moves them fast, an expansive wave makes them fall to the floor with strength, weakening them, including the copies. She takes more steps back and runs to the edge of the stage.

“Vanya!” Allison screams, trying to get on the stage. “VANYA!”

Vanya gets to throw her sister off the stage before lifting her own weight with her telekinesis and flying away through the hole and into the sky. It takes a lot of her ability to fly faster than the stream, but she manages to do it just when she’s floating close to the limit of the atmosphere. Next, she makes all of her body shine with her own energy and puts herself between the stream and the Moon; the energy crashes against her instead. Vanya resists her own power by absorbing it, but it takes a lot of her soul. In fact, the energy from her copy and her own are starting to blend together, rounding all around her.

Everyone looks up into the sky.

The blend of both energies keeps wrapping her entire body, her entire soul, and she lets that happen, even after the stream from the copy finishes, she lets that happen because once the the copy’s ray of light ends, her own energy and the copy’s are already blending together with easiness, there’s no turning back, but she’s okay with it because she’s bonding her soul to her powers and she’s content with that. She lets her ability consume her body because she’s content to know that helps her to bond with it, accepting her abilities. And, just like she overheard to Five saying, she closes her eyes as the insertion between her powers and herself end by making a final wave that expands into the sky of the alive Earth.

**~~~**

Allison holds onto Luther’s big arm when they all see how the energy makes a large expansive wave and it expands across the sky like if it were a bright, white firework. The entire sky is like if it were midday, at least, for some seconds, until this new form of energy with the shape of an irregular ball moves next to the Moon and hides behind it, like having her own personality, floating into space with her own will.

 _Her_.

It leaves her sister in shock for a while. Later, Allison rubs her eyelids, hides her face into Luther’s shoulder and screams. Despite everything they’ve been through, he also holds onto her too and tries to soothe her uncontrollable sobs, out loud, without any rhythm at all. Allison shakes her head several times, still in pain, even in serious shock. She can’t believe this; she doesn’t want to believe this.

Diego stares open-mouthed towards the night sky. He hopes with everything he has that Vanya didn’t have in mind Diego’s own sacrifice to sacrifice herself too for the entire world. If it is like that, he’ll have a hard time coping with guilt, even if the afterlife.

Klaus didn’t feel her death. Even by sacrificing herself, he didn’t feel like with Diego, even with Hazel, but he didn’t feel her sister get into the infraworld. Maybe, and just maybe, it’s because her soul is technically still there. Her body is the only thing that disintegrated. At least, with this new bond between her and her own ability, he knows she’s at peace.

Five stares at the sky too. This is it. This is not the end after all. His sister did the last stand, not him, like he thought he’d ended up doing. No, someone like Vanya, someone who _is_... _was_ normal and ordinary, she decided to be her own hero because she already trusted herself enough to do such a thing as flying and blending with her ability.

Ben doesn’t know what to think of all of this. Fuck, after Diego died, he swore he’d do anything he could to protect his family, not going through the same thing as he did, but... Vanya has let that happen to her. Maybe she’s not even in the afterlife after all. That doesn’t make the loss smaller on them. They’ve just lost a second sibling in the day, three in total. Actually, it’s past midnight, so it’s technically another day.

“Crap...” Five gets to mutter, still on the floor, after certain minutes. They remain like that, until they feel a noise coming from the entrance doors. Every one of them, including the copies, stand up immediately when Erin gets inside with a dangerous pace. “Stay right there!” he screams, putting himself in front of everyone before Luther stops him from doing that. “Stay back!”

“What did you just do?” she exclaims, growling and raising her arms briefly to the ceiling. She passes next to Hazel’s corpse as nothing. “I’ve told you **_several times_ ** that the apocalypse always happens! And now it’s been prevented!” she screams, protests, with desperate eyes, sweaty forehead and neck, tired, twenty yards from them all. They’ve never seen her like that, especially when Erin turns on her hands with lights. Klaus thinks about what Trinity told him and runs to stand in front of all of them and he hasn’t been able to go beyond because Five takes his hand. “What are _you_ doing, Klaus?”

“No idea!” he confesses with determination. Like Diego thought in his limbo, he's so proud of him, but what he's doing is risky. “Just... think about Luther Halliday!”

Erin stops walking at eighteen yards, clenching her jaw with empty eyes. She blinks several times and the rest is perplexed by Klaus. He has stopped her. She's turning off her energy.

“You didn’t know him.” she stutters.

“No.” Klaus insists. “But... he would want you to stop pressuring yourself.”

She keeps silence until she finds words. They’re just starting to realize how tired she is.

“Do you all even know what this means?”

“They do.”

Erin freezes totally and turns around just as everyone looks at the short, female shape behind them, ten yards away from Erin, with lilac clothes, eyes well covered as usual and frowning, standing up firmly. Five stares at her. Luther’s heart sink for what her presence implies.

“No...” Erin shakes her head, taking a step back from her and towards the stage. “No...” she hisses and takes more steps back when Trinity gets close with a dangerous pace. “No! You aren’t supposed to be here! You can’t help them!”

“I can’t. In the apocalypse.” Trinity hisses, stopping her feet. “They’ve already prevented it. Their job is done.” Trinity claps her hands briefly and they’re glowing with yellow energy. “Mine is not.”

On the stage, Allison’s copy has to take the body of her fainted sister away to duck the yellow stream when Trinity shoots Erin away to the back of the stage. Trinity gets closer to the stage and gets on it easily, with determination. She approaches Erin, who’s trying to recover from the hit; she coughs and stays sitting on the floor. Trinity kneels down right next to her with calm, so close that any of the rest, both the originals and the copies, can’t listen to the conversation between the magician and the old chief of the Commission. She technically still is, but she’s going to go to permanent jail. The Commission will disappear.

“Agh... My back...”

“Don’t pretend shit with me.” Trinity claims lowly. Erin growls softly... but she lets her arms rest on the floor. Thanks to Klaus’ words, she’s giving up. “You’re gonna go to jail. We already called the police in here. It’ll be fifteen minutes for them to come.”

“Oh, you turned out to be more dangerous than we thought.” Erin comments with sarcasm, barely lit by the lights of the stage and still sweating. “You’ve ended up helping the Hargreeves. Are you sure about that? I mean... you still have to help them. With the cosmic monsters.”

“I’m sure about it, you don’t have to worry about me.”

Trinity is about to stand up, but Erin holds her hand.

“One last thing.” Erin says and Trinity decides to stay. She’s going to one of the safest prisons of the state; the info she acquires right now doesn’t matter, but the less, the better. “You... You came out of nowhere to the original timeline. You came out of nowhere even to your master, neither him or my brother knew you until you appeared, from anywhere, you just appeared here in this Prime Earth multiverse, without anyone knowing you, when Reginald and your master decided to help control your previous powers with magic before I convinced you to join us.” Trinity freezes, but she doesn’t move. She just stares at Erin. “Who are you? Who are you really?”

Trinity hesitates and bites her lips.

“Do you know about space travelling multiverses?”

“Of course I do.” Erin claims, and then, she stares at where Trinity’s eyes are supposed to be and opens her mouth, just a little bit. Of course, if The Umbrella Academy exists in the Prime Earth multiverse, it can also exist in other ones. “Wait...” she hisses, taking a deep breath. She moves her head, wanting to chuckle but not being able to. “Vanya?”

Trinity shivers at that name, so she clenches her jaw and shakes her head. _Not her anymore_.

“Trinity.” she corrects.

Now it’s when Erin Hargreeves is able to chuckle, even laugh a little.

“Where is _your_ family?”

Trinity, not wanting to remember the past, points at the originals with the crown of her head with a swift movement.

“Right there.” she stands up and takes steps back. “Stay there or I’ll kill you.”

Trinity turns around and gets out of the stage and ends up between the originals and the copies, this last group she looks at.

“You have to leave this parallel universe.” she claims.

“Uh... Wha-...” Five’s copy frowns and moves his hands a lot, trying to put some sense to everything’s that happened. “What? Why?”

“We have two Hargreeves families in one universe.” she reminds. “Don’t you think that the multiverse will just stay like this? No.” She pauses. “This multiverse could collapse if there are two families in one universe too much time.”

“So we just... _leave_?” Allison’s copy says, getting off the stage after their Luther has Vanya in her arms. “And... how?”

“Fine, we need both Fives’ powers and an interdimensional vortex.” Trinity reports. “The interdimensional vortex can be energy.”

“How do we get that energy?” Diego’s copy asks. One Vanya is fainted, the other one is floating around space as a new form of energy, one Klaus barely can stand up and his copy doesn’t know he has telekinesis.

“Wait.” Trinity calms down. “There she comes.” The dark sky is illuminated by a shiny, irregular ball about two yards of diameter that goes through the sky, gets inside the destroyed theatre by the hole of the ceiling and ends up floating there. The original Allison stops hugging her Luther and stares at it with wet, thick tears. Her sister. “There she is. Vanya, could you stay there? Thank you.”

The original Five almost laughs.

Then, he freezes when Trinity looks at him for the first time. It’s the first time she’s so close.

“Fives?”

The original Five shakes his head and gets closer to her. The original Ben and Klaus look at each other.

“Do you feel...?” Ben mutters.

“I do!” Klaus claims, still on the floor.

The other Five gets closer to his other self and both of them get back on the stage with Trinity, who leads them closer to the ball. Trinity makes the rest of the copies to get on it too. She makes them to take each other hands including their Five. Then, the magician lights her right hand yellowy and she moves the left one towards the original Five. He slowly takes it.

“Okay, guys.” With her yellow hand, she carefully touches _Vanya_ ’s energy in the ball and a hole next to the copies is open. “That’s the vortex!” she claims. The copies look scared. “Don’t worry! This Earth will be fine.” Original Five looks through her lie. The monsters... “Claire will be fine.” Allison’s copy looks surprised. “Your friends will be okay. Klaus!” The copy, still holding the dog tags, looks confused and scared and on edge. “Remember. You don’t find answers about others or about yourself. You find yourself.” Original Klaus stays mouth open. How does she know so much? “Don’t let your emotion of loss block you! Have good memories in mind!” That’s also useful for the original. “Diego! Protect your family.” Which means his copy could sacrifice himself all over again to be with Patch in the afterlife. “You all can travel back to this universe, but for a brief time, _hours_. You’re going to another parallel universe, a primitive Earth. Rules could be different. Be _careful_.”

The vortex gets bigger with the original Five’s powers and, when they all blink again, the vortex is gone. The copies are gone.

The new form of Vanya goes back to the hole of the ceiling and disappears into the sky, connected with the universe. Allison takes Luther’s hand again. That action makes Five realize he’s still holding Trinity’s, so he moves away.

“Trinity.” Luther calls and she gets closer to the edge of the stage with Five. “What now? The interdimensional monsters?”

Trinity tilts her head.

“Let’s talk tomorrow.” she just says. “You have my address.”

Trinity runs towards to the back to the stage and holds Erin with a foot against the wall, making her gasp.

“Okay.” Luther says, not satisfied with the conversation, but afraid of the one they’re going to have tomorrow. The police cars are arriving, too close. “Let’s leave.” The siblings, still confused, tired, with a new lost sibling, wanting to rest, they all run behind the stage and start leaving in the back doors. Luther stops when Allison stops, frowning, still sobbing for the devastating situation. “Allison.”

“God...” she mutters when he hugs her. He accepts it because she needs it. “I... We lost her, we couldn’t do anything, we... we promised...”

“I’m here.” he just says with a serious voice. It still feels like shit to him. He had promised himself to buy her a violin... “I’m here, okay? We’ll talk tomorrow. You’re exhausted. We have to rest.”

Allison accepts being guided when they hear the entrance being open by the agents. It’s even, even more devastating the realization that Vanya won’t be sleeping right by her side tonight.

**~~~**

It’s been one week since the end of the world, since they avoided it. Since Vanya Hargreeves sacrificed herself.

They’ve all been trying to move on their lives the best they can. They’ve been trying to go on with their days despite they sat down around the table and realized that there were only four of them that were currently alive. Technically, Diego and Ben still can be tangible from time to time, but they don’t ask much to Klaus because he’s being doing a lot to control his telekinesis. He can break down any time and they know that. Now that the end of the world has been prevented, he has time to sit down and think about his problems for real. He’s going to break down any time.

Luther talked with Trinity alone, once more, in their other Earth, the other multiverse. She told him everything was fine with the copies and that they were getting used to the chaotic world of the primitive Earth Reginald Hargreeves lived in with his sister. This universe is perfect for them because there are no Hargreeves or academies that can be bothered by Erin because she's in the original timeline. And because the Temps Association has been destroyed too, but that’s a whole other story.

She finally ended up in one of the best jails in all of the state. It’s kind of elegant and even fancy; she’ll get used to it, which is what bothers Luther the most, but he has accepted it. In fact, he decided to ask for one visit to Erin Halliday in prison by his own.

He looks around himself in the small room. He watches as a man, crying, is sitting behind a glass and taking the phone to talk to his wife in prison, at the other side of the glass, with a phone too and also sitting. Luther does the same. He goes to the end of the room and sits on a chair and waits for Erin. They bring her in just a couple of moments. They have five minutes. Erin calmly and slowly takes her phone of her side, so does he with the same pace. She looks defeated. Her prison suit is gray. Her eye-bags are bigger and her pupils look darker. Her hair has been changed radically; it’s straight and it arrives to her shoulders.

“Hello, Erin.” Luther greets with dry voice. “How’s prison?”

Erin chuckles without wanting to.

“Sucks.” she mutters and sighs deeply. She looks tired too, as tired as Ben as a ghost. “But, well... I better get used to this quickly.”

“You have the rest of your life for that, don’t worry.”

Erin’s eyes get teary, but she pushes through it. _A clear Hargreeves_ , he hatefully thinks.

“Well... Your family?”

“They’re devastated.” he mentions. “I feel like shit, but I think I’m the one who feels better. Even Diego feels worse, even having in mind he's at peace.”

“I bet.” she comments. A police officer gets closer and taps her. “Time's over already?”

“Okay.” Luther says to the phone. “Farewell, Erin.”

“Wait!” she protests before he can even stand up from his chair. He stands up anyway but stays with the phone. “How's Reginald?”

Oh, right. She didn't know.

But she's going to.

“He's dead.”

Just as he hangs up the last call he's ever going to make her and he turns around, when he leaves the room he can hear her breakdown accompanied by a shout that crosses the hall.

**~~~**

The graves look like shit. The magicians have turned out to have more mercy than they show, so they've rented two good detached houses for the family. One close to the center of the city and the second one close to the fake building of the magicians.

They've decided to put on a corny funeral for Diego, Hazel and Vanya. Even one for Ben because his real grave is buried under the ashes of the destroyed Academy from this world, despite how many times Ben has told them he doesn't need one. This happens one week and two days later after preventing the end of the world.

With Trinity's help, Luther has managed to contact those Laura Benson and Mark Johnson to attend the funeral. They don't say much in it, they don't even seem focused on it, but they understand. After Five's final words, they keep one minute of silence before the four small graves and they split from the small garden of the apartment closest to the magicians. They all leave the garden except Allison, Laura and Mark, who are all staring at Vanya's tombstone.

_Prime Earth, Vanya Hargreeves_

_1989-2019_

And also...

_Prime Earth, Diego Hargreeves_

_1989-2019_

The tombstones of Ben and Hazel are written with the same font.

They feel bad for Hazel. He was the one to take the first step, to decide to help the family with the missions throughout the decades, to support them with everything he knew as a former worker from the Commission, but he ended up dying. Now, Agnes would be alone in 1952. They hope that at least she has made good friends in that era, which Five knows she does.

Despite all of the months they've spent in missions, they still count as they're still twenty nine. They wonder what to tell to Daniel's family when they attend his funeral tomorrow.

After staying fifteen minutes just like that, Allison cleans her tears and strokes her blonde but shorter hair. Then, she looks at the two friends, whose eyebags are as big as hers. The difference is that Allison feels worse in the inside.

“So...” Allison tries to break the ice, smiling a bit. “Vanya was my sister but... what about you two?”

Mark can't speak, so Laura takes the first step and looks at her.

“Well, I… As you know, we met her in an ice cream shop when I bumped into her accidentally and we spoke with her for _hours_. We spoke again in the same night she died. We… We didn't know anything, we just saw she was on a concert and got last minute tickets...” She swallows. “We didn't know she had powers.”

“But you did know about us all.” Allison notes.

“Yeah.” Laura nods. “We knew just your basic powers and all, but not much about her, we… I just read her book.” 

Allison understands.

“Well… I know this doesn't help, but one of my brothers can see dead people. And he didn't feel Vanya's death. Which means she can get back to her body, yeah, but briefly, like just a couple of hours and once in a year... or that's what the magicians told me. I hope it’s true.”

Now, Mark finds the courage to talk.

“She can go back once in a year? That's...” he stutters and Laura takes his hand with love and support. They were already part time lovers before Vanya, but they both liked her immediately. “That's not much. But enough to enjoy the day with her.”

Laura smiles with sadness.

“Yeah...” she mumbles and looks to Allison. “Thank you. We'll try to be in contact.”

They leave the garden too. Allison stays for five more minutes until getting upstairs to go to the bathroom. When she leaves the room, she bumps into Luther and they just smile briefly. It’s been the hell of a week. It’s weird realizing that they have time to rest now.

“Going anywhere?” he asks taking off his black jacket.

“I'm going to the town hall.” she says. “It's early. I'll try... I'll try to fight for Claire's custody back again. No rumors.”

“You better.” he comments with a neutral tone. “Actually, I'm going to the town hall too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” he just says. Allison waits in the comfy, classical living room from the house just Luther and Klaus live in. Allison and Five live in the other closest to the center. Later, she goes to the town hall with Luther. He's wearing a long gray coat with black pants and white shirt. “Remember when we used to watch TV cheap channels about live trials?”

“Yeah.” she chuckles softly. “They were _so_ boring, but you enjoyed them.”

“I still do.” he responds. “These trial things... These long, exhausting, past few weeks, between missions and events and death, they've made me realize I'm not a balanced person.”

“Uhm…” Allison hums. “What?”

“What I mean is that I'm never gray, always black or white, but no gray. Either I lock my sister up after choking her into unconscious or I supported her when she needed it the most. Either I treat one of my brothers as a fucking joke or I support him about Dave.”

“What do you mean?”

“That I can be aggressive. But subtle. I can be severe but methodical. Do you remember those trials? People are not balanced there either.” he pauses. “I'm gonna try to sign up for jury.”

Allison is kindly surprise for those news. She didn't expect it.

“Luther, that's...” They stop at the stairs of the town hall that split into different sections. “That's incredible.”

“Thank you.” Luther smiles and moves away closer to his section, the law section. “Good luck with the Claire thing.”

“Good luck the trial thing.”

“Thank you... sister.”

And, surprisingly, when they turn around from each other, it doesn't hurt Allison. Neither of them.

**~~~**

One week and four days later after they avoided apocalypse, Five is knocking Klaus' door. He turns off the loud music and opens it widely. Five almost cringes at the disorder of his bizarre and colourful clothes, all around chairs, the queen sized bed or the floor.

He's looking for a distraction for not focusing his mind on the losses over his shoulders, but Five doesn't say that.

“Brother!” Klaus exclaims joyfully. But that's not the case. His eyes look different somehow; Five can’t read through that expression. “Have you seen my white skirt? Long? With laces?”

Five hands it over to him (because he found it on the garden) and Klaus takes it to throw it to the bed. Five realizes his brother is totally barefoot. No anklet. Maybe he's looking for it, but he must be pretending to make new outfits. Fuck, he lost the anklet in the worst moment possible. The outfit he's wearing is composed by a black top, black pants and a gray belt.

“Just passing by to ask you if you wanted to come with me and Trinity.” Five says. “I've arranged a meeting with her master included. Wanna come?”

“Sorry! But no!” he answers regretfully, still _organizing_ his clothes on the bed. He wants to go outside so bad so that he doesn't focus on his losses, his pain, but he wants to leave his brother alone with Trinity for obvious reasons. He raises his arms in the air. “I have so much to do here...”

“You've been with this disorder since we arrived to this house and it's not changing, Klaus.” He ignores him. Five tries to say it another way. “You'll have to settle down and talk about your problems any time soon. You need it.”

Klaus looks abruptly and his eyebags surprise him. Five rests his back on the frame door.

“I know I need it.” he hisses with a heart in pain. “But...” He sighs. “... facing loss... makes me dizzy, defeated... I...” He swallows deep and keeps organizing good outfits. “I'll end up doing it, okay?” Five nods, trusting him. “It'll hurt a lot, I know, but I'll do it. I just hope I don't end up listening to Billie Eilish in the process.”

“You're not a depressed teenager, Klaus.” he mocks and Klaus laughs out loud. Five smirks and dares to comment something very carefully. “That's what you liked about Dave? That he continued your taunts?”

Klaus swallows again and freezes in his spot, standing at the feet of the bed and playing with the corner of a crop top.

“Well…” he stutters and looks at the ceiling. “One of the _many_ things, yeah.” He wants to tell his brother many more things about Dave, but he can't. His voice won't let him to. Instead he shakes his head slowly. “I-Well, have a good time in the magicians', bro.”

“Thanks.” Five says, moving away from the door frame. “I'll come back around evening.”

He leaves, not before closing the door. Klaus goes to lock it securely, something he used to do when there was a tough training when he was a teenager so that he could get high in private. Not doing those things anymore, but he's been smoking a lot lately. So much, that he's utterly lucky that intangible ghosts can't smell, so whenever Diego and Ben go see him (not that much because Klaus told them he _needed_ to organize his new closet), Klaus never makes them tangible. It also comes handy when he’s training with his telekinesis. If he doesn’t train this power, he feels frustrated and destroys his window or something. So he needs to practice that ability, but by doing that, his necrokinesis is less attended.

Klaus gets close to the window, takes a cigarette from his pocket, lights it and starts smoking the third one from the morning. It's past midday and it's colder than usual, causing him to cough a little, but he doesn't mind. After finishing the cigarette, he lowers the shutters because it's too much Sun for him. Half an hour later, he's crying again, so he lights another cigarette, lies on the floor and rests his head in the middle of the clothes while holding onto the picture from Vietnam with one hand. From his position, he turns on the radio again and, after a while, Billie Eilish appears.

Klaus is not a teenager, as Five said in one part of his taunt. But, the other part…

**~~~**

Five teleports next to a small room that looks like the coffee rest place for breaks with two or three trays of snacks on a coffee table and some tea and coffee. He's about to sit on one of the chairs, but he listens to someone next to him. Trinity is leaving a book on its place and looks at him through her blindfold. He wonders how are her eyes.

“Is there any place from this multiverse that doesn't have books?” he pretends to complain.

“Nope.” Trinity says. “Magicians study a lot. Gonna introduce you to my busy master before we talk about interdimensional monsters.” Five nods without problem. “Aren't scared?” Five shrugs as if he had been offended. “It's nothing, when I spoke about it with big boy, Luther was sweating an entire ocean.”

“Typical.” Five says, without getting concerned. “But you should have known that since you know about us a lot.”

Trinity tilts her head.

“I already told you that my master told me everything until the moment Luther came here for the first time. I don't know what's gonna happen right now or in the future. And I don't know so many things about you all.”

“You do!” Five mocks, passing his finger on the clean shelves. Trinity just whistles. “You must have at least some conclusions, youngster.”

“Youngster?” she frowns and pretends to be offended. Five chuckles. “I've been watching you all for thirty years and you know I've known your father from before.” she says. Five nods. Of course, he hadn't thought much about the fact that she's not really the age she looks like, just like himself. He wonders what's her story of being always with that look. “I feel like I'm at least one hundred years old, but... about these conclusions about your family...”

She seems to think about it.

“I do have conclusions.” she answers, finally. “I've come to the conclusion that... having superpowers is about balance. I u-s...” She coughs. “Your sister Vanya was _white_ when she didn't know she had powers and _black_ when she caused the apocalypse.”

“And _gray_ when she prevented it.” Five finishes and Trinity nods. “I get it. What more?”

“With that balance between whites and blacks, people with superpowers have to decide whether they want to be heroes or they want to have normal lives.”

“And what about my siblings?”

Trinity is careful to say this.

“Luther wants to do the trial things. He should settle down to construct a normal life, so for him, settle down. Allison has a daughter, so, straight to settle down. Diego is dead, yeah but his death is recent. The magicians have ways to bring back people from the dead. They're kind of _tricky_ , and the less, the better, but sometimes they work with an exchange spell and depending how many souls a person equals to because sometimes a person equals to more than one soul. The thing is that Diego could bond with his powers next to Eudora...” she comments. “Klaus is a whole other story, but I think he should settle down with David. Ben... is different because he died long ago. It's up to him whether he decides to remain dead or not. And Vanya, well, she has already decided, she bonded with her powers.”

“What about me?” he asks, tilting his head to her. “What do you think about me?”

“You tell me.”

Five reflects on it carefully before speaking his mind. Then, he crosses his arms and looks back at her.

“Well...” he mutters. “I've spent decades alone. I spent my whole childhood being ambitious as fuck because I didn't know how to balance those whites and blacks... and I was still like that in these crazy weeks.” He pauses and stares at Trinity. “There's so much to discover and so much to learn. I'm gonna bond.”

Trinity nods.

“Good.” she mutters, almost smiling. She starts guiding him away. “You have to meet my master. He's like a father to me.”

**~~~**

After the town hall, Luther and Allison have decided to have supper outside, so, Five decides to go back to Klaus to check him out before coming back to his house. When he lands on the corridor, he doesn't listen anything, zero disorder, zero music.

That's strange.

Five carefully goes to Klaus' door and knocks it a few times.

“Yeah…?”

Damn, his voice is hoarse. Wouldn't he…?

Oh, no.

Five teleports inside quickly and Klaus immediately stands up from the floor, leaving the picture on the disorder. He obviously notices his dried tears and his red eyes.

“What about privacy, man?” Klaus tries to joke, but he's frowning. God knows that the thing is bad news when Klaus doesn't know how to joke.

“Sorry.” Five apologizes. “But... I thought you were getting high all over again.”

“What? No! No!” he screams, trying to decrease the heaviness of the situation. “No, bro, I've just cried twice in a row and... this is my cigarette number ten.” He points at one turned off on the floor and Five feels terrible. He's never really been in love, this is how it feels? “But now I feel better!”

“No, you don't!” Five protests and Klaus does what he does, going back to the clothes of the bed without looking back at him. “You look like shit. I'm worried about you, what about all the times you've been told not letting that emotion of loss blocking you when you conjure Dave?”

“Because I've already tried once and again!” Klaus snaps throwing some clothes to the floor, turning to him with wide eyes, but Five resists. Five knows that the barrier that makes him unable to cope both with telekinesis and necrokinesis is his losses. “But I don't know... I don't k-know how to do that, I mean... whenever I close my eyes to concentrate in him... I see his body in the front lines...”

Klaus starts to sob and Five prefers to give him space instead of giving him a hug full of awkwardness.

“Wh… What about what Luther told about having in mind good and bad memories and only focusing on the good?”

“I tried,” Klaus spits dryly with new tears, more red eyes, shivering and desperate. “and failed. The bad memories feel stronger. His death feels like a whale on my shoulders.”

“Maybe it has something to do with trust.” Five tries to suggest for the last time. “Maybe you're always expecting yourself to fail.”

“I trust myself, Five...” Klaus stutters, sitting on the bed with defeat. “I really do, look what I did in the theatre one week ago. But the loss... it feels heavy on me.” He has to resist the urge of taking another cigarette, so he bites his nails. Vanya used to do something similar with her fingers, so he stops because of the nostalgia. “Really heavy. I... Damn, Dave himself told me he couldn't promise I was going to see him ever again. His death haunts me.”

Five has run out of arguments.

“So...” Five mutters, bowing his head a little, but Klaus doesn't look at him. He can't see him crying, only sobbing. He's like he's going to _break_ any time judging by his closed shutters and the clothes. “What now?”

Klaus hates being like this, but he needs it.

“Now you leave my room.”

And Five does.

**~~~**

Luther has been trying to talk to his brother too, but he was busy trying to apply for the jury. Allison is busy for the custody claim too, but she has visited his brother several times. She told Five the cigarettes per day have increased to twelve and the clothes... it's like a tornado. Now, he doesn't even open the shutters when he smokes.

He needs time. Seeing him like this hurts like hell, but he needs _time_.

Three weeks later after they avoided the apocalypse, Luther is knocking his door.

“Klaus.” he mutters attentively. “Klaus. Laura and Mark are here. Allison too, but not Five because he's trying to get a briefcase to go to 1952 to warn Agnes about Hazel's death, but... the thing is we're going to the movies together.” He doesn't answer. “ _Captain Marvel_ is out. You wanted to see superheroes movies with me, remember?”

“Don't wanna go.”

Crap, his voice.

Luther's heart sinks. He decides to return in his feet and leave to the movies.

**~~~**

Almost two months after they prevented the end of the world, they (except Klaus) go to the other multiverse together. Just like the two of them, Allison is surprised by the huge amount of books. They don’t see her master. Five is the only one who saw him and they only spoke for five minutes and it was about quantum physics.

Trinity tells them that they need the six of them to start talking about the multiverses, but they need Klaus to conjure Diego and Ben, so Trinity goes to the house herself. The siblings don’t know what kind of thing she would tell Klaus, but they don’t know what to do anymore, so they let her try it.

She knocks his door one time.

“Let me guess...” he hisses. His voice is turned off. “Tri?”

“Trinity. Correct.” she cheers up. She tries to be subtle. “You're smarter than everyone thinks.”

“How helpful right now...”

Trinity rests her forehead on the door. She thinks about something else.

“I know you hate to hear this, but I've lost people too.” she reports and she immediately has to take them out of her mind because it's too painful. “I know you'll hate this even more, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.”

“I can't really die, so…”

“I'm not talking about _you_ , Klaus.” she says and her comment makes Klaus stop cutting his nails and turning off the cigarette number tenth of the day. He has stopped crying two weeks ago because he feels empty inside, with no tears in his body anymore. They say that calm comes after the storm, but this is like a fucking permanent downpour. He doesn't _feel_ things anymore. There’s no emotion in him. “I'm talking about the Klaus from the future. He'll know this process you're going through is necessary to grow as a person. It's bullshit, yeah, but it's life. You have to accept life as it is... and then facing life to fight for your happiness.”

Who the hell is this girl?

Klaus feels empty, so the speech doesn't make an effect on him.

“Mm, 'kay.” he hisses. He thinks about smoking another cigarette while watching something happy, like _Hachi: A Dog’s Tale_. “Something else?”

“Yeah.” she mentions. “Look under your bed.”

He notices as Trinity leaves. Klaus frowns and looks under his bed with a new lit cigarette. He notices something shiny wrapped in a shirt. He unwraps it and dies a little on the inside when he finds in his hands the anklet he lost when they moved to this place. He kisses the souvenir and cries for the first time in weeks.

**~~~**

Klaus is getting better, as his siblings realize in the third month. They realize about that when Luther takes his food in a tray and opens his door. His bedroom is cleaned. It's still Klaus' room, but the thing is that clothes are in their place. Luther doesn't tell anything to Klaus, who's still smoking a lot and crying, but crying is a good sign too, at least in his case.

One week later after this, Diego and Ben suddenly appear in the living room, visible and tangible. Allison stands up and goes to her brothers.

“Wow!” she claims, celebrating, unexpectedly. “This is a huge step. How is he…?”

“He still won't leave his bedroom on his own except for bathroom, but he's eating much more and he opens his shutters.” Ben reports, relieved. “He also has found a weird hobby.”

“What thing?” Five asks.

“Painting with watercolor.” Diego says. “He sucks, but it's something.”

Three days after this, Klaus tells Ben he's ready to talk about all of that process, so everyone gets to his bedroom and he ends up crying between a lot of arms. Luther hands him water several times and Allison kisses his temple for support. Two days after this, he can go downstairs to the dining room to eat with his siblings. He immediately retreats to his room, but it's a lot.

One week after this, he watches _X-Men: First Class_ with Luther. While Luther is putting the disc on the player, he's surprised to see Klaus getting to the photo shelf and putting the Vietnam pic on it on his own. He kisses the anklet, now in his right wrist like a bracelet, and watches the film with his brother.

Inside two weeks, he can go to the streets in a process of five minutes, half an hour, an entire hour. It's a hard process, but stating the obvious, his family is right there for him. That same night, he secretly goes to Vanya's grave and tells her goodbye properly. He dedicates some words to Hazel too.

One week after that, he's hanging his watercolor pics on threads around his cleaner, lighter, less smoking bedroom. He hasn't left cigarettes and he probably ever won't. That night, Luther wakes up and hears his sobs, so he hugs him until he falls asleep.

However, one week later, he's better. His nightmares have decreased and his good memories with Dave feel stronger. Their kisses, their cuddles, the hushed words. How they used to sneak to the cabin outside the camp and give each other pleasure that made them both see _stars_. Now, three days later with those thoughts in mind, Klaus gets to start smiling by his own. Next, he's laughing with funny videos in YouTube. He loves having a phone. Then, one week later, he's painting a childish tree next to his window when Five knocks his open door frame (he could open his door by his own two weeks ago). He's been through a lot. The process has been slow and dragging, but it's what it is, a process that takes time.

“Yeah?” Klaus mumbles with his brush on his right hand and his second cigarette on his left one.

“We're all meeting Trinity in one hour, exactly at midday.” Five says carefully. Klaus doesn't say anything. “In case you wanted to come.” Klaus just hums. “But first, we’re all going to the grocery store together right now.”

“Allison insisted in all coming together, right?”

“Right.” Five chuckles. “Again... if you don't wanna come to the store...”

“I don't, but not for my state of sorrow.” he comments with sarcasm and he turns to him. “Luther never decides which cereals he wants, he gets me on my nerves! And the ones he picks are bad! Don't let him do it.”

“Deal.” Five promises. “So, in case you wanna come with the magicians...”

“I do.” he says, completely sure and with focused eyes. It surprises Five, but he's willing to help his brother if he feels bad in the magicians'. “I wanna go.”

“Cool.” Five nods. “We'll be buzzing here after we leave the food at Allison's. Then, we'll be here at exactly at midday 'cause our meeting is exactly at five past twelve. Magicians are punctual.”

“I bet.” Klaus says, getting back to his brush. “I'll be ready by then, don't worry.”

Five teleports outside, where the rest is waiting. He'd be totally lost if Klaus didn't have his family. He loves them so much.

At half past eleven, he takes a quick shower and gets dressed with a long, flowy skirt whose blue color matches the color of his flowy scarf he's going to wear for today. He dresses with a crop top of color lime green, Dave's favorite color, and black ankle boots. He decides to put his anklet as a real anklet this time, but on the right foot. When he finishes, Klaus goes to straighten his hair with one of the objects the house included and his hair stays beyond his shoulders. He doesn't like it, so he cuts it until the hair rests two inches over his shoulders. Now that's the outfit.

It's two minutes to twelve when he's painting his nails with black nail polish and Five is already buzzing the house, insisting. Given the place it's small, he can hear him shouting to his window, but Klaus only hears mumbles.

“I'm coming!” he screams back, going to sit on his bed in a meditation position. He focuses for his two dead brothers to appear right in the door of the house, next to the rest of his siblings.

He goes to the open door of his bedroom and takes the blue scarf from the hook of the wall next to the door frame and starts to put it around his neck, but stops abruptly when he hears boots two yards behind him in the room.

“Klaus?”

His face falls down.

Apparently, he has conjured three men instead two to the real world. And by accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the land stand of the apocalypse  
> Which people are gonna do the last stand against the cosmic entities?  
> And what about the other parallel multiverses?  
> ~~~  
> So... this is it, my second imaginary season of TUA. It's cliché, but I didn't think I've ended up writing a fanfic as big as it turned out to be  
> This last episode of my season turned out to be longer than I thought, but I just can't cut things out!  
> I hope you enjoyed this : D  
> Stay for the next chapter, because it's kind of my third imaginary season and a conclusion to their story, which will all be in an only chapter of the part 12 of this work  
> The last one, the number 13 will be solely and purely Klave, giving them the love they deserve with mild angst, fluff and smut  
> Thank you all for reading this, I appreciate you!  
> Stay safe and sane. I hope you liked the part when Klaus starts to get better little by little, baby steps  
> Remember you're appreciated and loved  
> I also hope you liked Trinity : 3  
> Oh, talking about Elsa, if you've heard about Frozen, I also made a "Show Yourself" Klaus version with the translation of different languages from the world. The lyrics are thought by me depending on Klaus' journey in this fanfic. I imagine in my head Klaus singing this in the infraworlf. Can you?  
> [ https://youtu.be/8vdRj-kU4G4 ]  
> Peace out!


	12. 3rd Season: "The Last Stand"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After avoiding the apocalypse, they settle down... and realize they're not over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third season | Warning: this is going to be long; grab popcorn, kids

_stand (stănd): "to resist successfully, withstand"_

**~~~**

**_“PROLOGUE”_ **

_When you think you have seen everything, the cosmos offers you something really different and you regret your choice of words. You haven’t seen everything. The greatest danger is yet to come, so another last stand is needed_

**~~~**

**_“SECOND CHANCE”, Shinedown_ **

_By the way, I made it through the day_

_I watched the world outside_

**~~~**

The house closest to the center, despite being farther from the magicians’ building, is full of books and folders that look from the Medieval ages. They occupy dozens of shelves and a couple of cupboards, but all of these are in the guest room because they don’t want to be those people who mix their normal lives with work. In their case, _work_ equals studying and trying to understand magic.

Nevertheless, only two of them have jobs and the four of them are as settled down as they possibly can when it’s been around six months since they prevented the apocalypse. They were doubtful and even a little uneasy about going outside to the world once more, being willing to start a new step of their lives, but, just like minutes before the end of the world, they just jumped into it.

Luther has become kind of famous around the city. They don’t usually recognize him in the streets because, according to some fans of these trial channels, _he doesn’t have a recognizable face_ , but just a few people do greet him. He’s not a celebrity, they don’t obviously ask for his signing or a photo, they only greet him and celebrate how firm and implacable he is on the trials, even if he’s just one of the many members from the jury, but one of the most famous ones, next to another man called Sam and an old woman called Abby. It’s been two months since he participated in his first trials and he’s only had seven so far, but he’s really good. He notices things the rest of the jury don’t, like certain words that the defendants use so that the person is connected to the crime. Once, he noticed that a _black widow_ , accused of eleven murdered husbands, had a few scratches well covered under her sleeve, in her left wrist, and he remembered it. She was about to be declared innocent when Luther stood up from his seat and said out loud that the scratches where noticeably from knives and the police had found a knife in in one of her houses but without any prints, so, thanks to his fast reaction, they correctly accused the woman and put her in permanent jail as she deserves. Any time the family gathers to see his trials on TV, they go and hug him until he says stop because he’s not the best at hugging or being hugged. Some things never change.

Allison is not an actress anymore. With her current situation, she decided to settle down in her new place while still trying to find a job and fighting for Claire’s custody. She’s still fighting for it, but the public lawyer of the zone, the cheapest one she could, has told her she’s starting to make an agreement with her ex-husband. Anderson, her lawyer, has suggested that on weekdays Claire will be with her dad and the weekends with her mom for one month. The second month Claire will be with her father from Mondays to Thursdays and, then, until they have middle terms with the father. Allison doesn’t like most of the things in the agreement, but as a mother, she’s willing to do anything to make her daughter happy. Good thing that the few times she has seen her ex-husband (not really her ex-husband) he hasn’t noticed that she wasn’t exactly the Allison from this parallel universe. On the other side, she has found a decent job in a boutique as a style consultant, helping people to decide their outfits. It’s not like acting, but she also loves fashion.

Luther and Allison have quite _got the ball rolling_ and they’ve started to make the decisions in the group. They call it a group now because Trinity also comes into their houses from time to time each week, but they’re still a family. Also because, despite that Hazel is dead and he doesn’t want to be conjured (as Klaus has told them), he still is family. Trinity prefers to be set aside in certain situations. On the other hand, Bopha, Gonzalo, Laura and Mark come each two weeks to have dinner together in any of the houses. Laura and Mark are still nostalgic with Vanya, not being able to see her physically because Klaus can’t really conjure her because she isn’t really dead, but they’re okay. 

Like in any house in the world, Luther has put certain rules in his house and Allison has put hers (the magicians have put their names into the houses’ property). Luther has been more leaned towards letting Klaus make all of the noise in the world he wants to because Luther sleeps like a rock, but at the same time he has to do the cooking when they eat home because Luther barely fries an egg. They’ve also made a deal about washing the dishes every two days in turns. The hardest part of both of them living together alone is that Klaus has grown so accustomed to conjuring one or more of the three ghosts that he always forgets to warn him. One day, Diego bumped into Luther getting his ears and his middle eyebrow waxed. It’s not something disgusting by any means, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant to see. However, as far as it goes, they’re okay together, despite any of the three ghosts bumping into him.

On the other side, not even one week ago Five was arguing with Allison because she was making a lot of noise at 9 pm. He wasn’t even sleeping, he was reading one of Trinity’s favorite books, but he was _getting too unfocused by his sister that he had to cause a blackout in the entire house on purpose_ while he was reading with a flashlight and she was trying to bring the lights back. She’s too busy with the custody issues and getting accustomed to her new job, so she sits down right next to her _small_ brother and turns down the volume of the TV in the living room.

“We have to talk.” she says before Five can complain. She’s wearing a long, pink dress without sleeves accompanied by her straightened, blonde hair. She tried to grow bangs just like Klaus, but they both hated it on themselves. “I know you’ve been distracted lately with books and all, but-”

“I’m not distracted.” Five spits, taking a sip of a nice coffee with two teaspoons of sugar. Well, just coffee, not nice. “You’re too focused on your custody thing and your job.”

“You’ve been distracted for three weeks.” she points out, putting her back against the pillows. Their living room is _funny_. Allison has decorated the furniture with a modern style, but the shelves and the sofa, put there by Five, look like from the Medieval ages. “I’ve had my job for six days.”

“Yeah, whatever.” he hisses. He’s still wearing the Academy’s jacket, like he always does, but the pants and his shirts change from time to time. “What do you want, Ally?”

_Damn, Hazel. You left us all but not before getting us accustomed to nicknames._

“It’s Monday.” she reminds him. “It’s your week to wash the dishes and do the laundry.”

Five grinds his teeth and rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” he mutters, caressing his left shoulder, still with the scar of the bullet the day they prevented Harold’s death. It makes him swallow because of Diego’s death. “It’s midday, but you wanna go to Luther’s already?”

“Sure.”

**~~~**

They do have a big table for big dinners, but it’s so wide that it occupies a considerate part of the living room (like around 60% of the space; in big dinners they have to carry the sofa upstairs). But now, there are just going to be four of them for lunch, so Luther puts the small table of the garden and Klaus sets the table before getting to cook. In the meantime, Luther tries to clean the permanent stain of the carpet.

Luther has grown accustomed to wearing his long, gray coat in cold days and his black pants as usual, but now it’s none of them in particular, so he confidently wears a white shirt that doesn’t get to cover his hairy skin one hundred percent. Klaus has helped him with that, wearing clothes inside the house and not being ashamed. On the other hand, Klaus is wearing soft pink leather pants, a black loose t-shirtand black ankle boots (still with the anklet on the left foot). He also has a small ponytail with a pink bow.

“So, what do we cook today, Klaus?” he asks himself looking at the fridge of the open kitchen, so Luther listens from the floor, still working on the carpet. “We have chicken and steak. What do you prefer today, Lu? I prefer chicken, I could make it _sautéed._ ”

“I like steak better, but Five and Allison prefer chicken too.”

“Fine, then!” Klaus takes out the package of the chicken, closes the fridge and puts it on the counter. He rubs his hands. “Oh, almost forgot! I need my blue scarf, to concentrate better in my kitchen.”

“ _Your_ kitchen?” Luther says standing up with the sponge. He gets close to it and puts the dirty sponge on the counter but away from what Klaus is doing. “Your kitchen, you say?”

“I’m the only one who uses it!” Klaus pretends to be offended, but he cracks a smile.

“I’ll bring your scarf.”

“Thank you, man. It’s on the hook next to the door.”

Luther washes his hands and goes upstairs. He goes to his own bedroom and closes the door so that the smell of the food doesn’t get inside. Then, he goes to Klaus’ open door and turns the light on.

The bedroom is clean, at most, two pairs of boots on the bed, but it’s clean. The shutters are up and that’s something he’ll always be glad about. He’s not going to let his brother go through what he went through several weeks ago. But now, he’s okay, and he has reasons to be. Luther remembers it when he grabs the blue scarf Klaus wore that same day, over three months ago.

“Damn!” Five hissed after he had tried to call Klaus from the door up to his bedroom several times, but he wouldn’t answer. “It’s already two minutes past midday! Trinity hates unpunctuality. Well, actually she doesn’t mind it, but her master does.”

“It’ll be okay.” Ben commented shrugging. “It’s our first meeting with them.”

“I hate to agree with Five,” Allison muttered. “but he’s right. We should arrive in time for the first meeting, at least. We should show seriousness when we talk about these cosmic monsters.” Some eternal seconds passed and she yawned. “Maybe Klaus needs our help again. We should go to his bedroom.”

All of the siblings (except Vanya) opened the door, went upstairs and walked to Klaus’ door. The sight left them in shock. But in a good way.

Klaus, with the long, blue skirt, green top, blue scarf and straightened hair, had his weeping face hidden in Dave’s neck, who was shushing him with quiet words, strong arms holding him in place and with his teary eyes closed too. They were kneeling on the floor, so Luther had supposed that Klaus’ legs failed his own weight. He even heard Five muttering a very quiet _huh_ as a sign of surprise.

He did it.

When they arrived, seconds later, Klaus was able to move his own face away. He was chuckling, sobbing and with his eyes very red all at the same time; giddy, excited, a bit frightened, but content.

“Oh...” he had stuttered once he took courage to realize his siblings were right there, in his door frame. He sniffled and stroked his own cheek for putting a hand on Dave’s. “Guys...” He sobbed again and tried to clean his thick tears off his face. “Yeah, I don’t think I-I can make it to Trinity’s.”

They kept quiet for some seconds. Allison was the first one who reacted.

“Klaus!” she celebrated, taking a step inside. Still on the floor, Klaus looked at all of them, still giddy, and chuckled stronger. Dave just stared at him with lovely eyes and stroking his cheek. He was wearing a gray shirt and white pants. “What’s going on?” she asked with a big smile.

Klaus laughed and started to stand up. His legs were still trembling (as well as the rest of his body), so Dave helped him.

“Oh, I don’t know...” Klaus stuttered, happy, shivering, and he closed his eyes before taking Dave’s hand again. “Oh, w-well, you know... now the good memories have taken over and all that jazz.”

Dave chuckled with him and hugged Klaus from his side, with an arm around his shoulder. They looked at each other briefly and, before anyone else could snap from excitement, Luther nodded to Klaus.

“Good job.”

Luther turns off the lights before leaving. Now, thanks to Dave’s return, Klaus rarely smokes once a week, but he’s still doing it out of habit. His ghost boyfriend has turned out to be a good man. He’s always by his brother’s side when he needs it the most, like with a rough bad dream or gives him space when he needs that too. He’s reverent, kind, severe, grounded, and sweet. Everything Klaus needs, wants and wishes and has missed in all of the time he was gone. Not anymore.

So, when Luther goes downstairs, Dave is there, next to Klaus in the kitchen, talking to him while the other man is cutting the chicken into little pieces. He’s not tangible, but still visible. Luther gets close and hands his brother over the scarf.

“Thank you, man!”

After greeting Dave, Luther gets back to the floor for the carpet, but no can do. It doesn’t come off. He doesn’t even realize when he hears a noise and Five kneels down next to him, frowning.

“I told you to try with alcohol.” he complains.

“It doesn’t work either.” Luther responds, taking the sponge and standing up with his brother. Allison is in the bathroom. “I quit.”

They all sit around the sofa, including Diego and Ben because Klaus had conjured them before cooking.

“Do we need to go to Trinity’s today?” Ben asks, playing with a pillow. “I mean, what if we take a walk?”

“Take a walk?” Five frowns. “Right. You wanna do that when the monsters could come any of these weeks.”

Ben rolls his eyes. Always Five.

“I hate to agree with Five,” Allison complains. It’s funny how she agrees with Five now more than ever, but they still argue when they’re alone. “but he’s right. We should go with her.”

“I arranged a meeting with her yesterday.” Five comments. “She told me not to go from 1 pm to 3 pm because there are more magicians training and they need concentration.”

Ben frowns.

“Why doesn’t she want us when there are other magicians training?” he notes. “Or studying?”

They reflect on it. Five even does that, but he shakes his head.

“Well, there could be a lot of reasons.” Five suggests. “We can ask her.”

And, when they go to the entrance hall of the place (after knocking and being teleported), they do try to ask her, but they don’t find her. They wait for her to appear, but it’s already been an hour. They decide to walk around the shelves and everything is the same.

“So...” Diego mutters, passing his tangible fingers through the books and looking to the wooden ceiling. The others are gathered around there. “Maybe... We could try to call her master, Five.”

Five doesn’t know what to say, so he shrugs and looks at a glass object that looks like a kerchief.

“I... I don’t know his name.” Five says, bewildered because he has just realized that he doesn’t know his name. Shit. He knows Trinity knows a lot about them and about quantum physics, more than he will ever know; he doesn’t know why, but he feels _odd_ for not being able to trust her as much as he wants to. “I just greeted him and we talked for like five minutes about the basics of physics and all, but he didn’t tell me how much he truly knows about us. But the few things I could read from him... he knows a lot, even more than Trinity. I also realized that we haven’t really seen any other magicians apart from her and her master... and I’ve only seen him once.”

Klaus thinks about how he faced Trinity for the first time, hours before Vanya prevented the apocalypse, and Tri told him that _you better not bump into my master, too many memories for you all_. He keeps that in mind to talk about it later.

“They don’t want us to see those magicians.” Allison suggests, suddenly backtracking her own trust in the young girl. She hesitates, not even sure on what she’s saying. “Think about it. That’s why she told Five not to come from 1 pm to 3 pm.”

They keep quiet for a while, until it’s some minutes past four.

“I think Tri is being honest when she says she doesn’t know what’s gonna happen.” Klaus comments, looking at a shelf whose top says _history of apocalypses preventing._ He frowns and takes a random book. “Woah!”

“What?” Ben asks, getting closer. The others remain around in their places but listening.

“The title of this book is _Apocalypse of Prime Earth: Volume I_.”

Five stands up immediately and takes that huge book (two feet tall and two inches of thickness) from Klaus’ hands. The cover is dark brown and the title is in golden, just like the address the magicians left in their old hideout, but the pages are light ochre. Five takes a deep breath before opening it carefully and regrets not having gloves this time. God knows how much technology there is here.

“So...” Five starts reading while his siblings listen carefully. “The prologue says _what has lead and will lead to the end of the world in February 2019 in Prime Earth,_ our multiverse,” Five reminds them. “and _first step: make the apocalypse happen on purpose for them to go back in time and save the world in another parallel universe._ ”

They stare at the book open-mouthed.

“W-Wh-...” Luther stutters, struggling a lot to catch up what this all means. He stands up and strokes the bridge of his nose. Fuck, the apocalypse was meant to happen in their original timeline. He softly kicks the sofa he was sitting on seconds earlier and growls softly in frustration. How foolish of them. They thought the problems were over, but no. They still technically have to talk about the cosmic entities that could come any of these weeks. “The apocalypse happens too in other multiverses? How?”

Five gets closer to the book and puts it on the coffee table between other chairs. They sit around to watch it from their positions. Luther is the one who kneels down in front of the table and has the courage to turn the page.

However, they hear footsteps that are too close to that zone, so Luther closes the book abruptly and he stands up to cover it. They’re attentive to the new guy. Around his thirties. A tall man with a good body shape, ginger, short, curly hair, with a beard but not too much, and his magician outfit has royal blue clothes. He has a blindfold as well. This guy realizes they’re there and stops abruptly with a smile and in a good mood, tilting his head.

“The Hargreeves?” he just asks as a manner of greeting them. Luther nods slowly and tries to force a smile that comes out really nervous. “From Prime Earth?” Luther nods again and tries to speak, talk something, but the man keeps talking. “That’s so cool!” he chuckles, raising his hands to the ceiling briefly. Then he takes a step back, analyzing them and making them uncomfortable. “Our master and Trinity won’t stop talking about you, especially her rambling about the little one.”

The siblings are shocked to see Five tilting his head with amusement instead of being furious about someone calling him _little one_. However, Five shakes his head and swallows deep.

“What’s your name?” he asks, instead, because that man appears to know them, but they still don’t know anything about him.

“I’m, Sigmund.” he mumbles. Next, he shakes his head, sighs and rests his back against some shelves, uncaring if that makes them dirty. “You’re not supposed to wait around here. I’m not supposed to be around here at these hours either, but I wanted to take a quick smoke. Shhh, I won’t tell my master you were around here if you don’t tell him about me.”

“Deal.” Diego says, trying to read through Sigmund’s eyes. “Where is this guy coming from? They just know he’s from this other multiverse. Has he other powers apart from being a magician?

“’Kay, then.” Sigmund says, getting away from them. “Trinity will come anytime soon. Bye, fellas.”

And, before they can say goodbye to Sigmund, the new magician leaves quickly behind a corner. They’re nothing but confused. They try to reflect on what has just happened.

“W...” Ben stutters, standing up, looking at each one of his siblings and rubbing his eyelids. “What has just happened?”

Five struggles to catch up too. He tightens his eyelids and takes a deep breath before coming back to the table and opening the book.

“Well, it’s the third magician we meet.” Five frowns, looking at the soft ochre pages. “The first one, the master, the second one, Trinity, the third one, him.” He thinks about them. “I don’t understand... if there are just three magicians in this place, why is it so big?”

“The master must be hiding more of them.” Allison points out after some silence. “That’s why Tri told us not to come in certain hours.”

“I don’t know...” Five hesitates, walking from side to side of the reading zone. “Tri doesn’t seem like the person who lies on purpose.”

“And how do you know?” Klaus spits, standing up too. “You barely even know her, like the rest of us, I bet even dad didn’t even know where she is from.”

Five wants to counterattack so much, but Ben intervenes, not wanting them to argue out loud when they’re not supposed to be there.

“Let’s keep calm!” he says, still on his chair but with his back straighter. “Let’s keep calm. We have to figure out more about this multiverse, now that we’re in here.” He tries to think about something. “Five, could you try going to the main entrance?”

“Why?”

“Try to open the door and get out.” Luther says, thinking about the same thing. “We’ve always been teleported inside from our multiverse to here anytime we _knock_. What would happen if we just opened this door?”

They realize that they’ve never really opened or closed those gates. They don’t know what’s in its real _other_ side.

“I don’t think it would be what they call _Prime Earth,_ ” Diego comments, stroking his jaw. “our multiverse. No, it has to be _this_ multiverse, another Earth.”

“Huh...” Allison hums. “I wonder how many Earths are in this... cosmos?”

Five remembers when they were six years old, late at night. Grace’s lullaby.

“Omniverse.” Five states, stopping his movements and tapping the floor with his foot instead. He does that out of nervousness. “Inside the omniverse, there are infinite parallel multiverses and parallel universes inside the last one.”

“Grace said that word, right?” Luther remembers that night too. “When we were six?” Five nods. He’s about to speak again, but he’s interrupted. “Didn’t she say that after the world was saved you were gonna fall in love?”

Five acts like if he has just received the worst insult in the entire world; he frowns even more and clenches his jaw when Luther stares at him, Diego deviates his glance, Allison smiles naughtily, and Klaus and Ben chuckle softly.

“What?” Five spits, demanding an answer for their reaction.

“Five...” Allison mutters, trying to think about the words she’s going to say to him and chooses the right sentences to speak her mind. “I could tell that you’ve been distracted for a couple of weeks now.” she explains slowly while Five is having his eyes closed halfway. “I thought it’s because you’ve been learning a lot from the magicians, but it could be because of Trinity too.”

“Trinity?” Five asks, spitting again and apparently without caring anyone listens to them. “What about her?”

“It’s her the reason you’ve been distracted, especially with what Grace told you when we were six.” Allison tries to insist with a calm voice. “I mean, I’m not a love expert, bu-”

“Oof, of course you’re not.” Klaus lets go and Ben frowns at him. Allison frowns too for his big-mouthed sentence. “Sorry, sis...”

Allison can’t forget her mistakes in her life yet. She’s trying to build up a new relationship with Luther while trying to make progress in getting Claire’s custody. She’s upset about Klaus’ words, but she saves that conversation for later. Klaus reads through her, but they have to talk about it later, not when they’re in another multiverse.

Luckily for Five, the conversation has deviated from Trinity, so he shakes his head and walks away from them.

“I’ll go try to open the entrance doors.”

And he teleports away. Seconds later, he comes back with his powers too and he looks confused.

“Couldn’t open the door.” he responds. “It was locked.”

Five doesn’t admit out loud that he’s afraid of teleporting to the other side for the uncertainty, but they know.

“Well, let’s just keep searching things about-”

“About who?”

They slowly turn around to see Trinity arriving towards them with a rolled paper. She looks tired. Not tired, more like on edge and accelerated.

“About the ginger guy we walked in a couple of minutes later.” Ben thinks fast and Trinity nods, biting her lip, like if she didn’t want to hear that. “I know we’re not supposed to walk beyond the entrance hall or the main level, but-”

“Yeah.” she just mumbles, distractedly from... whatever she was dealing with earlier, that’s why she took so long. “I mean... yeah, let’s go to the main level.”

They walk there quickly. They’ve never seen Trinity this accelerated from leaving a place, not even when they saw her for the first time in February, not even when she stopped Erin back in the theatre. What must have happened to her has to be serious.

“Trinity.” Five talks when they’re in the benches of the main level. The main level is a level right above the entrance hall, just going upstairs of the central stairs. She just turns around to him half a yard away, standing up near a bench, still holding that rolled paper. Five frowns. “What?”

“ _You_ are always frowning, you grumpy old man, and you ask _me_ what’s going on?”

“Because there’s always a reason when you frown, grumpy old woman.” he hisses back and Trinity clenches her jaw and deviates her glance, even behind the blindfold. The others remain either uncomfortable with their brief argument or wanting to comment something like _ooh, low blow_. “You look jumpy and accelerated.”

“I’m not _jumpy_.” she mumbles and Five notices she didn’t say she wasn’t _accelerated_. Even with this, Trinity is shocked by the worry in his voice. “I just had a mission that was tougher than we thought.”

“Tell us about it.” Five demands, really serious, and Trinity hesitates. “Tell us, come on.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with the cosmic monster, believe me.” Trinity reads through everyone’s minds and they’re never going to stop being amazed by her. Some people could not like her because she’s the kind of person that seems superior, but Five knows she doesn’t really feel superior. “We also have other missions too, don’t you think?” Five is about to counterattack, but he’s interrupted again. “Don’t worry, those missions are finishing so that we focus more on these space entities.”

“Fine.” Luther accepts because, apparently, Five doesn’t find the right way to interrupt her. Five is breathless by the fact that she easily makes him quiet somehow. “And... I know we should worry about our own multiverse, our Prime Earth, but what about the other Earths?”

“Don't’ worry about that either.” she says, standing up next to Five while the others seat on the benches and she leaves the regular rolled paper on the floor. “There are more magicians from this Earth that can help around the omniverse.”

“Can we ask...?” Diego starts, but he hesitates when Trinity looks at him. “Can we ask which _number_ of Earth is this multiverse?”

They call _Earths_ to each multiverse despite the fact that there are more Earths inside each multiverse. Prime Earth is the entire multiverse, despite the people from the original timeline don’t live in their original timeline. Actually, magicians usually call _Earth_ only to the parallel universe where the people from the original timeline are. Like them.

“Well...” Trinity seems to be thinking about it. Thinking about which lie or truth to tell them? Or she really doesn’t know what to say? “We call Earths to each parallel universe where people from the original timeline are. In this case, just you, because you were the only ones to go back to 1952.” she explains. “You’re Prime Earth, despite not living in the original timeline. This... is Second Earth.”

Second Earth, from how many multiverses?

“Does...?” Luther starts to ask, but then he realizes they’ve figured out something from reading books that they shouldn’t have read perhaps. He tries to be subtle. “Does the apocalypse happen in other multiverses? I mean, that’s why the magicians must be so busy.”

Trinity is rendered wordless for some seconds. Five stares at her, looking for an answer, begging inside of himself that she tells them the truth.

“There are also... complications in other multiverses too apart from the cosmic monsters.” she carefully says and, before someone asks it to her, she reads their minds, even without telepathy. “Like apocalypses.”

“How do those apocalypse happen without Reginald and Erin being in these multiverses for causing them?”

Trinity keeps quiet for an only second.

“With other superpowered twins fighting each other for treasons?” she shrugs. Five rolls his eyes. It should have been something she knew because she’s a magician and magicians also help other apocalypses and other cosmic monsters. Not anymore because the end of the world has been prevented in Prime Earth and there will be cosmic entities that threaten to destroy the galaxy from this universe, so Trinity will focus on their multiverse. “I don’t know, my master didn’t tell me.”

“What’s the name of your master, by the way?” Klaus dares to ask. Trinity seems to think about it. “Or you just call him _Master_?”

“I think I told _you_ , Klaus, that your dad and him rescued me when the Commission wanted me to make me a slave of my powers.” she frowns, taking a step forward. Ben is attentive, just in case. “They came out of nowhere, so did I, but that’s none of your fucking busi-”

“You didn’t tell me _that_ exactly.” Klaus spits, but not angry, just careful. “You told me that some other people rescued you too.” He shakes his own to add a little of drama. “How many, and who?”

“Seven, but I don’t remember anything else.” she confesses, sitting on a bank, still close to Five. The closeness feels odd for both of them. It’s not the first time they’ve been this close, but it is one of the first times they feel even flustered. “I was... out of my mind, unconscious, I had just lost people like you also know. After I recovered, Reginald told me to stay with my master because he would teach me magic. And magic helps people to control their previous powers.”

“Really?” Allison asks, surprised.

“Really.” Trinity nods, suddenly, with less tension in her body. Still, Five seems to be close to being on edge, but he controls himself. “Despite how many centuries old I am, they both knew who I was, even Erin. After my master taught me magic... he gave me the option to leave and make a life, but I learned from you all, from what Reginald was going to do. 1989, the training, the childhood, the apocalypse, 1952, the missions...”

Trinity keeps quiet for her broken voice, thinking about everything. They’re astonished and Five is shocked, looking at her. She must have had the hell of a life. She’s obviously not going to tell them soon about what happened in that Primitive Earth where Reginald and Erin were born centuries _after_ her; they’re going to let her tell them. They suppose she’s from their dad’s universe, that she’s from Prime Earth, not Second. They thought the only people that could travel to other multiverses could be the ones from the original timelines, but then there’s Trinity, Erin and their dad. They don’t know if Erin has travelled to other multiverses.

“You...” Luther mutters, trying to put things together, to connect the clues. “You helped us voluntarily?”

Trinity chuckles and looks at them again.

“Yeah.” she nods. “I wasn’t going to, if I’m honest. I’ve seen all of you growing up because my master was definitely gonna help you with the events, but I wasn’t going to. Until you were thirteen and finished your second mission to the open public.”

Ben frowns, realizing, remembering.

“When you reassured me in that dead-end alley.”

Trinity nods. Then, she takes a deep breath and shakes her head. Trying to forget. Forget what?

How much does she really care about them?

“Well...” she mutters, swallowing deep. “It’s 5 pm. Pep talk’s finished. Let’s talk about the monsters.”

Tension leaves their bodies.

“What are those cosmic entities?” Luther asks while she unrolls the rolled paper, the same size as her arm. Luther has learned a lot from Hazel, so he has carried a bag with pens and notebooks he hands to everyone, except his dead brothers. “Where do they live from? Where are they?”

“Actually...” she mumbles. “They’re everywhere. And _everywhen_. However, after doing something like preventing the apocalypse and after creating more and more parallel universes, the cosmic monsters are able to _identify_ the cause after analyzing the Earth and the place of what’s prevented the end of the world. All of you.”

“Crap.” Diego spits. “I mean... they can identify where we are and why?”

“Correct. The less time you spend on Second Earth, the better.” she says, extending the paper on the floor among the benches. It’s a drawing with black pen that exhibits a big circle with small circles inside of it and smaller circles inside the small circles. Trinity kneels next to the paper, so does Five, next to her. She points at the whole big circle that occupies almost the entire paper. “That is the omniverse.” she states. “The small circles are the parallel multiverses and the smaller circles inside are the parallel universes. There has to be a small limit of parallel universes created by time travel. There can be _alive_ and _dead_ parallel universes, but not with multiverses. However, there _are_ infinite parallel multiverses because they are created alone by Big Bangs, not by turning back in time.”

“Like, Third Earth, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh Earth...?” Allison asks carefully and Trinity nods at her from the floor. “Fine. And why is our multiverse called _Prime Earth_ instead of _First Earth_?”

It’s a simple question they hadn’t thought about since they heard that expression from Trinity for the first time, but it’s important too.

“No idea.” Trinity strokes her jaw. “My master just told me _Prime Earth_ is special because the Hargreeves are the ones who prevent the end of the world on their own, so _Prime_.”

“Like _Amazon Prime_?” Klaus asks as if his interruption didn’t matter. “A special world? We’re special, guys!”

“We didn’t do it alone.” Luther insists and Trinity glances at him, lifting her eyebrow. “We did it with Hazel. With other gifted children. And with you.”

She moves her head, hesitating. Damn, it’s even like the conversation about her helping them voluntarily hadn’t existed at all. She’s had a hard time opening up; they don’t think she’ll ever do that in a long time. She’s like before they even introduced themselves, which bothers Five the most. He wants to get to know her better, but the common distrust blocks him. He tries to push through it.

“It was you all who wove your own path, all the way here.” she insists. “I don’t want to take your free will away from you.”

They reflect on it. They haven’t usually thought about the true meaning of free will, thinking it’s better not to rack their brains because if they think about it too much time, it’d be devastating the true lie of _freedom_. The best they can do right now is having _willpower_.

Five even keeps thinking about it when they return to Luther’s while the others are trying to gather everything they’ve been told today around the living room. As usual, Luther and Allison are the only ones standing up. Diego is sitting next to Ben in the sofa and Klaus is combing his hair on a chair. Normally, Five would have been standing up, but now he’s sitting on the floor, stroking his jaw, spacing out, but at the same time concentrated in his own train of thought.

“Five?” Allison’s voice interrupts his mind. He shakes his head and sits better. “What do you think? We can trust Trinity?”

He taps his foot on the floor.

“I think we have no other choice.” he says. “The monsters could come any day and the magicians know a lot about them.”

“I wonder if there are more magicians around the multiverse, I mean, in other Earths?” Diego asks. “Maybe they could help too apart from the Second Earth.”

“The other Earths must be busy with the previous days before their own apocalypses.” Five thinks out loud. “ _I_ wonder about how those apocalypses happen. Maybe by other people with powers preventing it...” He shivers. “Yikes.”

“ _Yikes_?” Klaus mocks at him while raising his hand in a funny gesture. “Really? You’re getting younger! You’re adjusting!”

“Am I _what_?” Five frowns.

“I mean, I don’t know.” Klaus chuckles. “You look like your brain is adjusting to how your body is. Your body’s young, it still has the energy from a young person and not from a grumpy elderly dude that feeds bread to pigeons on a Sunday morning.”

Somehow, Luther remembers how he and Vanya were guarding the computers room alone, in the entrance, and he watched like an old man was feeding bread to pigeons on a bench. Despite all of their hurdles and their mistakes, he misses her so much. He can’t wait to see her when she materializes herself this year, the first time since she prevented the end of the world.

“Woah...” Five shakes his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Our lives don’t make any sense.” Ben reminds everyone and Klaus nods, starting to make a small braid to the left side of his hair while the rest of it remains the same; now, it’s shorter, barely below the back of his neck and curly. “We have to accept life as it is...”

“... as Tri told me when I was _sorrowful_.” Klaus finishes, thinking about that horrible state he was in, and how it ended up the best way possible. He still cries at nights, he still has horrible nightmares, he still smokes, but he has the best support by his side, not just Dave. “Talking about her, I also think we have to trust her. We have no choice.”

“Fine, okay.” Luther states, giving up, but still unconvinced. “But if anything goes downhill when we’re next to them, we take a step back to analyze them better.” He takes a deep breath and looks at the stain on the carpet. Now he must take it to a laundry store. “We better eat supper or something.”

**~~~**

_“So...” a man says while eating a round_ lollipops _, caressing his white, messy hair and resting his back against the wooden wall as he rests one of his black boots on the chair, playing with it. He can already feel the dangerous glance of that scary magician for making the chair dirty, but the lollipop man is like he is. “Prime will decide to trust Trinity?”_

_“Yeah.” the magician says, adjusting his dark blue kerchief. “I mean, they’ll have no choice. Prime Earth will be the first multiverse to face cosmic monsters, but because it will be the first one to stop their apocalypse.”_

_“Correct.” a woman in her sixties says, stroking her perfect hair. “The other multiverses will be busy with their own cosmic monsters when it’s their turn, after they avoid their own apocalypses... Now, what happens next?”_

_Another man (the third one mentioned) in the chair, perfectly sitting, with a cane in his hand, is the one who makes the decisions, so he puts his back straighter and looks at a black-skinned tall guy, with white suit and drawings of the interrogation signal of lilac color. They call him_ **Freewill**. _Freewill’s work is throwing_ _dices over the board of life and predicts what’s going to happen in a world, in a universe or in a multiverse, whatever the_ asker _demands. In this case, the askers are six men and one woman, all of them around their fifties-sixties. Freewill is tall but not taller than another man with his big axe against the wall, from Seventh Earth._

_“What will happen next, after they decide to trust Trinity?”_

_Freewill cracks his neck with a smile and hesitates, or pretends to hesitate. None of the seven trust him, but they need to know what’s going to happen in each of the multiverses; how their apocalypses happen and how the cosmic entities come to each original timeline. Freewill walks towards the table and shakes his dices (white cubes with lilac dots) inside his hands and throws both on the board. The seven askers are attentive._

_“Okay.” Freewill says when the two dices stop over the symbol of a small house and this small wooden house is next to the symbol of a number one. “The fake building from Prime Earth where the door to Second Earth will... be attacked.”_

_“Crap.” the magician curses. “Really? Shit. I hope Prime Hargreeves won’t bump into mine again, according to the dices they’ll already bump into my Klaus.”_

_“Don’t worry.” Reginald nods to the master of Second Earth, completely sure, making the floor sound with his cane. “They’re totally impulsive, but attentive when they have to.”_

**_“JUST IN TIME”, Dean Martin_ **

_Just in time, I found you just in time_

_Before you came my time was running low_

_I was lost, the losing dice were tossed_

_My bridges all were crossed, nowhere to go_

**~~~**

In that same day, as usual, the others wait around the sofa watching something in that small but good TV, a woman that swore her baby needed an exorcism when the poor woman actually had just a convulsion while Klaus is preparing mini-pizzas with Allison’s help, right after they arrive from talking to Trinity and that they’ve decided to trust her.

“That dress is really pretty.” Klaus comments and she nods as in a thank you. “I’ve been having trouble finding a good dress lately. I know that magicians don’t lend us enough money to grab expensive clothes! But still... agh, I need to find a job.”

“You will.” she cheers up.

“Hey.” he suddenly mutters, stopping putting smashed tomatoes to the small pieces of dough and his hands are full of flour. He hesitates with his head and his sister looks at him while cutting small pieces of salami. “You know...” Crap, this is hard. They’ve bonded these weeks more than they have done in the rest of their lives, but it’s still difficult opening up. Klaus guesses that it will always be this way because of how they were raised. “I want to say sorry, you know, for opening my mouth back there.”

“Klaus.” Allison notes. “If I learned something about you these thirty years is that it’s impossible to shut your mouth. Maybe, except when Dave kisses you.”

“Not even then.” Klaus laughs and his sister chuckles. “Not even then...”

He looks doubtful.

“What is it?”

Klaus moves his head and goes back to preparing more smashed tomatoes for making a sauce, a base for the mini-pizzas. The smaller a thing is, the better. He literally loves the mini cupcakes one of their neighborhoods cooks.

“Well... I...” He takes a deep breath. “You remember when we were here when we ordered Chinese food because we ran out of cash for the weekend?”

“Yeah.”

“Well... The delivery person, a pretty woman, flirted with me and Dave was around.”

Allison doesn’t know what to say.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” he says with pity. “I didn’t even flirt _back_ with her, I only have eyes for Dave now, I just accepted the food, paid with the card and closed the door, but Dave got upset. And it’s not the first time that this happens. We thought... We thought that we’re okay about our current situation, but then I thought, what if in the future I wanna date someone else? Or what if Dave wants to _move on_ and rest?”

Allison didn’t expect this conversation. Klaus has grown so much.

“Wow.” she mutters, now immersed in the conversation. “Did you tell him?”

“No, but he knows.” Klaus responds, still doubtful. “We’re okay _now_ , but what about the future?”

“Didn’t Trinity tell you that it’s possible to bring people back?”

Klaus looks at his sister quickly, stays open-mouthed and his eyes tremble.

“W-What?” 

“You didn’t know?”

“N-No, but...” He frowns and swallows. “In any case, what if it doesn’t work? If we can bring him back, or anybody back, we have to be one hundred percent sure.” he says. Allison realizes he’s right. They couldn’t rely on such low numbers of possibilities if they’re going to bring someone back. They would have to be one hundred percent sure. “Dave’s upset...”

“You have to wait some more weeks, in my opinion.” Allison speaks her mind. “By then, you have to ask yourself if you want to date someone else with him still being a ghost and ask him if he wants to rest and be at peace, to move on.”

That creates an unnerving feeling in him, a pit in his stomach. But, if he has learned something from that horrible state of mind that finished three months ago, is to fight life for your own happiness and that he can get out of those states.

He briefly looks at the picture of Vietnam on the photo shelf.

“Yeah.” he says with a dry voice. “Thank you, Ally.” He chuckles with sadness. “Damn, I miss Haz.”

“Me too.”

**~~~**

It’s 10 pm when Allison and Five go back to their house and when Klaus lets Diego and Ben wander off around the streets, as ghosts. He hasn’t seen Patch too much around in the real world, just once or twice when Diego has asked him for it when she missed the physical Earth, but not much. Klaus guesses that he usually visits her in the afterlife.

Five lies on the sofa, throwing himself at it like a couch potato, and Allison takes off her earrings.

“What a day.” she mutters, taking off her shoes in a chair. “Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“We’ve been suspecting from Trinity lately, with a good reason though.”

Five growls and throws his arm over his eyes, not wanting to think about it too much.

“Before you all say anything out of place, I’m not in love with Trinity.” he hisses. “And I’ll probably never be.”

“Falling in love is not controllable.” she states. “I know that, despite the rumoring and all. I do know that, thinking about Vanya totally worried about her two lovers back in the theatre, thinking about Klaus and his past state. Do you think Vanya fell for those two being as classical as she is, for two people at the same time? Do you think Klaus fell for Dave on purpose in the middle of a war?”

“No.” Five growls, giving his sister the voice of the reason. “But someone like _Trinity_?”

“You’re not growling when you say her name.” Allison chuckles.

“God!” Five protests, standing up quickly and shaking his hair. “Worst roommate ever!” Allison is about to respond, but he gets serious and points at her with his finger. “Don’t you all speak to me like if I were thirteen. I’m still fifty eight.”

Now Allison is the one who keeps quiet. But she never gives up.

“Well... Didn’t Trinity say she's like some centuries old? It wouldn’t be _that_ weird.”

Five growls again and goes to his bedroom without a word, but not angry with his sister. Angry about the fact that she _could_ be right.

**~~~**

Luther waits outside the bathroom, waiting for Klaus to finish his quick shower. Then, Dave is getting close to him in the hallway, but stops when seeing him.

“Oh.” the other man says. He’s wearing the same gray shirt as usual and black pants. Luther will never understand how ghosts change their clothes. Maybe it depends on Klaus. “Sorry, I didn’t bother you or...?”

“No.” Luther interrupts. “Klaus told me you were around here, this time.” Dave chuckles and rests his back on the wall of the hallway. “Is everything okay with you two?”

“Yeah.” Dave says carefully. “Why?”

“Nothing,” Luther says. “Klaus seemed upset when he was cooking tonight’s supper.”

Dave knows what he’s talking about and he bows his head.

“Yeah. Well, I’m a ghost, he’s alive.” he stutters softly, hesitating, being doubtful. He sighs, frowning a bit. “We knew something like this was coming anytime soon. It sounds stupid, but... but I didn’t have _competition_ when I met Klaus. And now, it’s 2019, things are different...”

“I don’t think it’s stupid.” Luther comments. He knows it must be difficult for Dave because girls feel more free to flirt than the nurses in Vietnam. He can’t even think about how he must feel when _men_ flirt with Klaus. “I’m not a love expert, but I think you should wait more weeks to settle down and talk. Just, enjoy your time.”

Dave just smiles and gets inside Klaus’ bedroom. Klaus gets outside the bathroom with his bright pink t-shirt and his white shorts as pajamas. His hair is still curly despite the shower. He gets inside his room with a small kick that closes his door.

“Aw, man!” Klaus yawns, drying his hair with a towel despite August tells him he doesn’t even need it. “I needed that shower!” He sits on the feet of the bed, next to Dave, who looks at him all the time with a faint smile. “I dunno how ghosts don’t smell bad without showers.”

Dave shrugs and rests his head on Klaus’ shoulder.

“The charm of being dead, I guess. Okay, that was odd.” They laugh together. “And _you_ didn’t say it.”

“Eat me.” Klaus flirts. Dave moves his head away, without that beautiful smile anymore. “Hey, Davey, I know-I know we haven’t had the best days, but-”

“It’s okay.” Dave interrupts, looking back at him, eyes against eyes, and tilts his head while stroking his fingers on the mattress. “You have other things to worry about. I can wait. Let’s enjoy ourselves, won’t we?”

Klaus chuckles and kisses his jaw.

“We will.”

**~~~**

Despite all of the confusion, Five rests well and wakes up with energy. He then has a shower and gets out with a thin gray jacket, a soft pink shirt (which he insists it’s _salmon_ ), dark pants to his knees and moccasins. Allison waves her hair instead of curling it as usual and wears a flowy lilac t-shirt because she feels nostalgic. Somehow, despite everything, their father insisted in assigning a color to each child for identifying them all, but that thing didn’t have a big success because her siblings were arguing for the colors. He remembers saying little Diego yelling _My favorite color is yellow! Why Luther does always get what he wants!?_ Somehow, Allison remembers that Vanya’s color was soft lilac. She wears that t-shirt with white shorts and a gold necklace with the number seven.

Stating that she misses her sister so much would be falling short. She went through hell trying to overcome the fact that she’s just going to see her once a year.

The two of them have breakfast alone around 9 pm. Allison doesn’t want to bother her brother about Trinity so soon, so she decides to make small talk until she does want to talk about it.

“What are we gonna do today?” she cheers herself up to talk. Five looks at her, finishing his toasts. “I mean, magicians? Walk? Shopping? Studying?”

“We should study more.” Five offers. “I know we’ve been suspecting Trinity, but what are gonna do about it?”

“Going beyond.” Allison responds. “Behind their backs. I mean, they can’t kill us, we need all to be together when the monsters come, so-”

“No!” Five exclaims, not furious or angry, more... preoccupied. God, Allison thinks, even if Five isn’t in love with Trinity (yet), he really does care about her. He must be worried about letting her down, but more worried about opening up to her. That worry must be coming from the distrust towards her. He must really want to get to know her better, but his stubbornness and his distrust won’t let him. “No... Let’s be subtler. We have to wait for our next move. Before the monsters.”

**~~~**

It’s been two weeks since they’re started reading some books right in the Second Earth’s magic _shop_ or, at least, that’s how they’ve decided to call it. They learn that there are more magicians from Second Earth around the omniverse than they think.

“Have you met some Sigmund?” Klaus suddenly asks Trinity, who shakes her head out of confusion and looks at him, stopping looking at a map in her lap. They’re all sitting in sofas from the main level. “We bumped into him about two weeks ago.”

“Oh, yeah... Sigmund.” Trinity hesitates. This time, her hair is completely down, without that ponytail. Her hair is longer and brighter than it looks with the ponytail. “I haven’t talked to him much, but I do know him from what my master has told me.”

“Is there any magician here that has superpowers apart from the magic?” Ben asks and Trinity deviates her look for one second.

“Well, yeah, but they’re in another section. This place outside Second Earth is actually bigger than it looks from Prime Earth.”

“How much?” Five asks, attentively.

“Well, like, six big buildings together?”

“Like our Academy.” Ben says, without a question tone.

“Yeah.” Trinity nods, calm. “Well, more like a stadium.”

Klaus can’t stay like this anymore. They agreed to trust the magicians, to trust her, the woman who has watched them struggle, grow, but it’s difficult. However, he does try to bite his nails and swallows his words for a couple of minutes.

“I don’t get why the monsters just appear when the apocalypses are prevented or when parallel universes are created.” Luther expresses stroking his short hair, looking at an open folder. “I mean... where are those things from?”

Trinity huffs.

“I think I already told you, Lulu.” she says and Five can’t help but laugh. Allison keeps that gesture in mind. “These entities are always _everywhere_ and in every moment from the Prime Big Bang to _now._ There are always around Earths, but when there are things on Earth that change events or prevent apocalypses, they _sense_ it. They materialize, they acquire a physical form to attack what’s... creating so many universes.”

“Me?” Five asks, worried and frowning.

Everyone’s worried too.

“You’re not the only one who can time travel, Hand-Five.” Trinity says, Klaus laughs and she tries to calm them down. “Magicians can do that too and-”

“But I’m the only one from Prime Earth who can do that!”

Trinity stares at him. They look at each other for some tensed, heavy seconds. Then, Five deviates his look and Trinity takes a deep breath.

“That’s why we have to make this right.” she stutters, stroking her long hair. “That’s why you have to let the magicians help you.”

“You don’t count as a magician?” Diego notes she didn’t include herself as one.

Trinity bites her lips and shivers briefly.

“I meant that, let _us_ the magicians help you.”

**~~~**

“How are we gonna trust them if she’s hiding so many things from us?” Diego protests, kicking off his shoes and sitting on the sofa. Ben is about to tell something when he feels something under their feet. “I mean, _we have no other choice_ , but it’s like we’re in another Academy but Second Earth.”

Klaus remembers what he had in mind.

“What...?” he starts saying, slowly. “What if... there are versions... there are versions of ourselves in Second Earth? What if there are versions of us in other Earths?”

They all open their mouths when the land under their feet moves stronger, like a soft earthquake, and they can’t help but remember how this started to happen too when they were investigating in old headquarters from the Commission. It reminds them of the Earthbender.

They wait some seconds until the land moves stronger. They look all around themselves before walking fast to the door and open it. They get out of the front garden and get out of the fence. They see as two police cars and some fire trucks go from left to right on the road and turn around the second corner to the left, the exact same path they go to the fake building of Second Earth. Before his siblings realize, Five is already following that direction, so they follow him.

They run as fast as they can and, from afar, they see the fake building has lights coming out of it, accompanied with fire. That ball of energy reminds them of the new form of Vanya, but when they get close, they see it’s composed by more colors. The rainbow lights gather in a one yard diameter-ball; ball which has a completely dark hole in the center and a lot of rays with the colors of a supernova. That thing looks like a personified supernova, its physical form, and like a cosmic octopus at the same time. They didn’t wait for that thing to appear, so if they use their powers, people will see their faces. The people, who are terrified and getting away from that building, except the firefighters and the police, who are trying to fight the fire and the police are firing at that monster. The siblings run to get people away from the problem, but they still feel kind of useless except Allison because she can use her ability.

The monster _looks_ furious despite not having eyebrows, or eyes, or any face at all. It makes its tentacles go through the road and tear the material off the pavement. The entity lengthens its tentacles towards the police and kills them by easily going through them. After Five saves a pregnant lady from one of the cars the cosmic octopus throws, he looks back at the dark orange building, in fire, and runs towards it, wanting to teleport inside, but Diego grabs his arm in the middle of the chaos.

“She isn’t inside!” he screams. “The entity doesn’t know this, but it’s attacking an empty building!”

Five tries to keep calm. Crap. He moves his brother’s hands away and tries to run towards the building again, but he sees as a yellow light comes out of the ceiling, trying to attack the space octopus, which counterattacks. Both fight for a while. The siblings can’t see shit sometimes. Later, it turns out to be Trinity who comes out of the bright, yellow light and screams when one of her streams of energy is touched by one of the tentacles. Five stares, so does everyone. That touch between her and the entity generates a white wave that extends around above the buildings. The light makes them blind for some seconds.

After recovering from the hit of the floor, Allison coughs, shakes the dust off her and notices how Five stands up, shivering, and crosses the road, avoiding the destroyed cars of the police and the trucks. He screams something. Then, she hears it better.

“Trinity!”

The others stand up too and cross the destroyed road. Five is knocking the door frantically, but none of the magicians would teleport him inside. Then, he turns to his siblings and nods, disappearing. They don’t understand until he appears with Trinity in his arms. She’s unconscious. Luther understands and knocks the door repeatedly. They realize that the entity is gone.

When they blink again, they’re no longer in Prime Earth.

**_“ONE CALL AWAY”, Charlie Puth_ **

_I'm only one call away_

_I'll be there to save the day_

_Superman got nothing on me_

_I'm only one call away_

**~~~**

Trinity complains from the pain that the pit in her stomach causes and grinds her teeth. It’s not physical pain because she can’t really feel it (which is not exactly accurate either) but exhaustion that creates a void inside her. She growls from the void inside her and sits on the bed abruptly. Someone takes her hand and she realizes quickly that it’s her master. She calms down and rests her back on the big pillow. She has a white shirt and white shorts, a blanket over her body, and no blindfold. Her master, as usual, has it.

“Well...” he says after a silence. He sits better on the chair next to the bed. Her _room_ (not really a bedroom) is between four walls full of shelves with books that are everywhere, except the space for the door and the window. It’s about two yards x five yards of space. It’s not too dark, but it’s not too bright. There’s only one light bulb; on the ceiling. The window, despite being 3 pm, is covered by a blanket. “That was a thing.” he mumbles, serious but calm. She huffs and blinks several times. “They’re suspecting.”

She knows. She doesn’t want to think about that either.

“I know.” she hisses. “We both know they’re smart. But what do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know... _Lie_?”

“I can’t do that...” Trinity complains, with a knot in her throat. “It’s _them_. We have to trust each other, so that they allow us to help.”

“That’s right.” he comments. He remembers how he warned her about the hurdles of helping the Prime Hargreeves voluntarily. “But, despite the mess against the first monster, you did good. The entity thought Prime Hargreeves were inside that fake building.”

“Yeah.” she mutters. “But it’s destroyed. How are they gonna come back here?”

“They’re _here_.”

Trinity looks at him through his blindfold and her uncovered eyes.

“What?”

“They’re waiting for you to wake up, to check out if you’re okay.” he says. She can’t help but being killed by a tenderness that invades her. “Five is worried.”

Trinity rolls her eyes and covers her eyes with her hands.

“Crap.” she mutters, thinking about him, like she’s been doing for six months, when she took his hand in the theater before the copies left to the primitive timeline. “So, is the fake building okay?”

“Some builders are fixing it already.” he says, standing up. “But the doors are okay, so they still can teleport without problem.”

“Can Five teleport inside by his own?” she asks, sitting on the edge’s bed. “To this multiverse?”

“Yeah, but it’ll take him practice.” he responds. “Don’t worry about him.”

“I don’t.”

“Of course you do.” he interrupts. “Aw, Five and Trinity, two of a kind.” Trinity frowns and growls, putting on her purple blindfold only. She doesn’t have the energy to put the entire magician outfit, so she puts on a salmon scarf only around her neck. He takes her hand to help her stand up. “Come on, they’re waiting for you in the coffee zone.”

“Isn’t that too close to where the Second Hargreeves are?” she chuckles.

“Don’t worry, my Pogo is guarding the zone.”

“Fine!” she gives up her uneasy emotions. “Fine, we’ll be okay, Reginald. Anything else?”

“Yeah.” the master nods slowly and carefully. “Take care of yourselves.”

Trinity walks through some corridors and says goodbye to her master when she goes downstairs and he goes upstairs, towards the training garden.

She goes downstairs slowly and turns around a corner, heading to the coffee seats inside some shelves with cookies and good coffee that Five is enjoying. He stands up quickly when he sees her, but controls himself when his siblings spare him a glance.

Trinity gets close and Klaus offers her his seat.

“Well, yeah, are you okay?”

Allison can’t help but laugh at Five’s pretended calm. He frowns and she keeps quiet.

“Well...” Trinity mumbles, stroking her own jaw. “... that was a thing. You must have seen me fighting against that thing?”

“Yeah.” Luther states, calm but serious. “You were astounding. How are you feeling?”

“Tired.” she says, Five sits next to her slowly, carefully, and Klaus stays standing. “We knew something like this was coming, but not the exact moment. That entity must have felt you around that portal and attacked the fake building.”

“We can go back to Prime Earth, right?” Ben asks, worried, and Trinity nods.

“Yeah.” she mutters, stroking her face. “Yeah, the doors of the fake building weren’t damaged. You still can knock.”

“Do you know more about this entity?” Five asks after he stops staring at her. “Why did it disappear when it made contact with your energy?” She thinks about it, for long seconds, and Five growls out of impatience. “Tell us the truth.”

“I will,” she hisses, still exhausted and hesitating. “I will... We’ve just fought against a cosmic monster, remember? I’m a little bit slow right now...”

“Oh, you’re quick and fast for everything about us and you’re just slow when you have to tell the truth.” Five reproaches with a severe voice. “How hypocritical.”

“ _Two of a kind_ , my master said...” Trinity mutters, but everyone can hear it. “You’re gonna get along with Five! he said... Oh good... Yeah, _two of a kind_.”

Five turns towards her in their seat and makes her look at him in the eye; she does that quickly with certainty.

“He’s right.” Five agrees with sarcasm and the others are either uncomfortable or worried about them both. “He’s right. We’re two of a kind. But there’s only one difference,” He lifts a finger. “the difference is that despite everything, I still have left some self-respect for myself... and you don’t.”

Trinity stares at him, with contained anger, so does he. They remain like that with tensed seconds.

Later, Luther clears his throat and bows his head.

“That’s enough!” he states and Five and Trinity deviate from each other’s eyes, like if they’re pretending the other doesn’t exist. She takes a deep breath. “That’s enough. Let’s focus on what happened back there, won’t we?”

“He’s right.” Allison tries to say with a reassuring tone. Somehow, that softens Trinity, like from a _nostalgic_ moment in her past. “Tri, why did your energy and that monster’s collapsed when they came into contact?”

Trinity reflects on it.

“Well, my... my previous powers, apart from the magic, are cosmic.” she stutters carefully and, despite they don’t understand, they’re surprised. Five stops pretending she doesn’t exist in the room. “They’re cosmic, from a dying star or something like that. And, because my power is from outer space, the monster... _reacted_ when it touched my energy.”

“Well, that...” Diego tries to put into words. “... sounds logical, I think?” He shrugs. “Can we ask why are your powers yellow?”

“No idea.” she says, putting her hands back on the bench, and Five has to resist his urge to touch her hand. Like in the theater. “I guess, the dying star of my ability was yellow before exploding. No clue.” She strokes her face and takes a deep breath. “That monster... the only thing we know about it is that it comes from a group of stars called R136. It’s a concentration of stars, in the Tarantula Nebula. When a star is born, that energy is enough for the monsters to have a physical form. My master predicted it’s from R136, but not which place was attacked.”

“Why don’t you ask him at least which places they’re going to attack?” Luther asks. Trinity hesitates.

“I’m... rather _reverent_ when I talk to him. He doesn’t tell me much. You already know he stopped telling me the future until I met Luther for the first time. I know no more and he won’t tell me either.”

“You have to try at least.” Five insists, more relaxed but still focused on the discussion. “ _We_ have to try. Together.”

Now it’s when Allison realizes about her knot in her throat and her uncertainty. Crap, how did Allison not notice much before? Five is right. Trinity doesn’t rely on herself. Trinity doesn’t have self-respect.

“Yeah.” she stutters with a dry voice and raises her head. “Together.” She stands up. “It’s still early. Have you eaten something heavy? We have so much to do.”

Apparently in these hours, it’s okay for them to wander around the shop with more freedom (but still not too much; the TV room is forbidden even for the other magicians), so they read more and then they go out to the minor training garden. It’s beautiful, around fifty squared yards. There’s a cherry blossom tree in the middle of the rectangle and that tree is next to a stone bank. Half of the space is a stone space and the other half is sand. To the left side of the door, there are columns under the stone protrusion of that last level of the tall building. The space has no ceiling and no wall on the right when they go through the door, so when Trinity sits on the stone bank while the rest remains standing, staring at the pink dusk of the sky of Second Earth. The other buildings look normal.

“For space travelling multiverses,” Trinity tells them, but especially to Five because he’s the one who can do that. “you have to be connected to a source of energy, like we did together in the theater.”

“Yeah.” he says.

“Then, you have to have in mind a particular object characteristic from each multiverse.”

“Which are...?” Ben asks.

“There’s at least one object in particular from each multiverse.” she starts saying. “Prime Earth, a monocle. Second Earth, a blindfold. Third Earth, a holographic watch. Fourth, aviator glasses. Fifth, a bubble. Sixth, a wrench, Seventh, an axe, Eighth, a phone... and a lot more.”

“The Second Earth’s object is a blindfold because of the magicians?” Five asks and Trinity nods. “Fine. Does that mean we can go home by our own if I think about a monocle?” She nods again. “Okay. I’ll try to do it later. What can I do now?”

“Now you can search for how to concentrate on those objects.” she recommends. “How to focus on those objects solely even in the middle of a fight. Telepathy books can help you. They’re in the level below us, just stay around the drawers.”

“Okay.” he says and looks at Luther. “Come with me?”

**~~~**

Luther and Five go downstairs and bump into a lot of drawers instead of shelves with thousands of books. They stay around the drawers for some minutes until Luther opens one interesting.

“Five,” he looks at him and gets close after closing a drawer. “look. This book’s titled _the brain and how to focus your mind_. This one’s perfect.”

Five takes the book and reads it calmly.

“It says: _have a perfectly mental image of the object perfectly, be aware of your surroundings, but be attentive with yourself and the object... blah blah blah... think about each detail of the object... blah blah blah..._ ”

While Five is immersed in the book, Luther notices something so tiny that deviates his look, but it’s still there. However, when he moves his head, he gets close when he sees a small shine in the middle of the wall, close to a corner between a translucent window and a wooden wall. He goes to the corner and realizes that the sparkle in the wall comes from a very thin dark gap; so thin he can’t see anything from the other side. He tries to touch around the wooden zone, even the window, but there’s no secret button or anything really.

“What?”

He looks briefly at Five, right next to him and still with that book in his hand, and keeps doing a dance with his hands.

“There’s a gap here, see?” he says and Five frowns when he looks at it. He hesitates about it, but Allison is right. They need to go beyond. “I know it can be anything behind, but...”

“... I got it.”

Five puts the book on the closest drawer, stills his feet, prepares himself and teleports _behind_. Luther is attentive, waiting. Seconds later, he comes back, as silent as he can, just in case.

“What happened?”

Five nods, takes his arm and teleports both of them inside.

There’s a lot of darkness around them, so Five takes out a small pocket flashlight thanks to Hazel’s recommendations. They look around, still in the dark room. It’s a thin corridor that leads to a small room about twenty squared yards. It’s also full of shelves and other drawers, but there are also small TVs on the drawers. They’re all turned off. After facing something as serious as a fucking apocalypse, Luther has learned a lot, so he doesn’t think when he opens a random drawer (or at least, he doesn’t _try_ to think).

There’s a lot of big, dark tapes with words they don’t understand. They don’t use gloves because they’re so dusty that it shows they haven’t been visited in a very long time. After a while, Luther finds one that’s titled _Trinity’s decision, 2002_. They stay open-mouthed and put that tape immediately on the player of one TV. It doesn’t work. They try with two other TVs and the third one does work. The TV shows as if there wasn’t any signal. They wait two minutes. They’re about to give up when an image makes them kneel down back on the floor when it shows some letters saying _please, stand by_ , which means that the broadcasting has been interrupted.

The next image shows a street in third person’s perspective. It stays in that position until it shows a dead-end alley. They don’t know what’s going on until a teenager covered in blood and uncontrolled tentacles runs to it and kneels down, waiting for it all to end. They’re in shock, especially as they see a girl getting close to young Ben and calming him down... or trying.

In the video, Ben realizes Trinity’s there behind, so he tries to attack her unconsciously, but she ducks the attack. She bends her knees a little bit and stays still. Ben stays still too.

 _“Calm down!”_ she says in the video, reassuring, with a big scarf around her mouth, a hoodie, and dark tracksuit. _“Calm down... I’m here, okay? I’m here.”_

Young Ben bows his head and sits on the floor with his back against the dead-end. She kneels down on the floor too, but he doesn’t seem to relax. He’s still on edge. Trinity seems to understand this and lifts the hand she has tried to reach him and turns it on with yellow energy.

 _“Look,”_ she mutters, attentive. _“I have powers too...”_ Ben has the courage to look back at her. His tentacles are still flowing around. _“... and they’re utterly scary... I know that.”_ Ben shivers. Trinity turns off her hand and reaches it to him. _“I know that. They’re scary. But there’s nothing you can do about it. You have to accept what you’ve been given, whether you consider it a curse or a gift. You have this. It’s what makes you who you are.”_ Ben stays still all of a sudden, especially when she takes his hand very, very slowly. _“It’s alright. Life’s gonna be hard on you, very hard, but you go on, okay?”_ Ben hesitates and is doubtful. But he ends up nodding. Trinity smiles noticeably under her scarf and makes Ben high-five her. _“Atta_ _boy.”_ She stands up and Ben does the same after turning off his powers. _“Well done. You resist this, okay?”_ Ben nods while she returns to her feet, away from the dead-end. _“Okay. Take care of your family!”_

She flies away and the tape goes back to no signal.

**_“LEAN ON ME”, Bill Withers_ **

_Sometimes in our lives_

_We all have pain, we all have sorrow_

_But if we are wise,_

_We know that there's always tomorrow_

**~~~**

Luther can’t handle it anymore, so he takes out the tape and the TV turns off alone because, apparently, Five has lost the ability to react with everything regarding the magicians. Except when Trinity was in danger, he guesses, but he won’t bother Five with that; he’s not Allison.

“Wow...” Luther mutters, hesitating for a bit, but then, he shakes his head and looks at his small brother, who looks back at him. He’s shocked. “That was something.”

“Yeah...” he hisses, clenching his fists. “That _was_ something.”

Luther doesn’t want his brother to argue with Trinity again, so he tries to see it the other way.

“But, Five, this was something good.” he insists. “We already knew she comforted Ben when he needed it the most. She helped our brother. This was the moment she decided to help us, on her own, voluntarily.”

Five doesn’t know why he’s feeling this way. He clenches his jaw and deviates his glance. He _does_ know, but he won’t even admit it in his own mind.

“It’s still weird that magicians have weird magical tapes in third person of our story.” Five realizes. “What else do they have, I mean...? About all of our lives? About the past of... Trinity?”

Luther doesn’t know what to say, but he decides to put the tape exactly on its place and makes Five to stand up and teleport them both outside the forbidden place. Once outside, they walk fast so that nobody sees them around. They don’t even want to think about the possibility of that place having cameras.

They return to the garden and when they open the door, they’re surprised to see Klaus in a meditation pose, concentrated, legs crossed, palms together and levitating in the air two yards away from the floor and lifting two rocks with his powers. Wow, Trinity is a good trainer.

Klaus comes back to the floor and they all get close to each other. Trinity doesn’t tap Klaus’ shoulder but nods in celebration. Five wonders how much physical contact she misses.

“Well done.” she says. “See? It’s a little bit easier when you repeat yourself what you want to lift, like _lift rocks_ or _levitate_. You just have to clear your mind.”

“It’s not easy for me.” Klaus complains, brushing his tight shorts. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I tend to space out.”

“No way...” Ben says with sarcasm and his brother pretends to laugh.

“I know.” Trinity says with certainty. “But it’s a matter of training.” She turns to Five, who doesn’t know what to think about her anymore. “You know how to teleport to other Earths already?”

Five clenches his fists and she notices it. She doesn’t move away, though.

“It’s hard.” he just says. Luther is surprised that he didn’t mention the tapes thing. “It’s really hard, but I think I’ll get it.”

“Great.” she mentions. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat something in Prime.”

**~~~**

They eat in Allison’s house. They’ve passed by the fake building and they’ve checked out that the door is okay. The walls look burnt, but the rest is okay. They’re fixing it already.

They’re eating Thai food right now, gathered around the coffee table like in a typical sit-com.

“Come on!” Klaus insists. “ _Seinfeld_ is a classic!”

“If we’re talking about iconic and classic, I think we should mention _Friends_.” Diego counterattacks. “Come on, it’s _Friends_!”

“Sit-coms are boring.” Five spits in a good mood (as far as he can be in these weeks). “You can always predict what’s coming.”

“Like Ross and Rachel getting back together once and again,” Trinity agrees. “once and again, once and again, once and again... Agh! It’s exhausting.”

“Yeah.” Five chuckles in order to stop his laugh. “Or what about Ted Mosby? That guy is nuts.”

Allison has to bite her lips to stop her rambling about that she agrees to Tri’s master too. _Two of a kind_.

“But we all agree that Phoebe Buffay is the greatest character ever, right?” Klaus expresses.

“I prefer Joey.” Diego comments.

“I prefer Chandler.” Ben says.

“I like Chandler too.” Trinity nods, moving her fork after moving away one piece of her kerchief off her face. “But Monica is nuts. She’s a pain in the ass.”

Five has to _bite_ his smile and takes a deep breath that everyone can hear. Apparently, normality overwhelms him. In a good way.

“You’re a pain in the ass too.”

Everyone’s surprised by Five’s comment. Instead of taking it seriously, Trinity lifts an eyebrow and tilts her head while looking back at him.

“You don’t fall short, Five.”

Five’s eyes seem to... _shine_ with taunt, but unfortunately, Klaus huffs a laugh and interrupts.

“Damn. Get a room.”

Five clenches his jaw and he breaks the glance with Trinity. Ben frowns at Klaus, who bows his head and doesn’t say anything else.

“I’m tired.” she says, standing up and looking at the clock. 11 pm, they’ve been eating and talking for a while. “I should leave. The magicians are in a mission and I have to be there just in case, like a backup. Bye-bye, fellas.”

Everyone waves their hands before she turns around the corner and leaves, except Five, who keeps quiet for a while.

**~~~**

“What happened?” Dave asks when Klaus gets inside his bedroom and throws himself into his bed. Ben follows and closes the door. “What is it, Klaus?”

“Yeah, well...” he mutters into the pillow. He turns around and sits on the mattress with the pillow on his lap. “I kinda ruined Tri and Five’s romantic moment...”

“What happened?” Dave insists, sitting next to him after taking off his boots.

“This genius,” Ben points at him. “this genius opened his mouth, as usual, when Tri and Five were noticeably flirting.”

“It’s not my fault they always flirt when we’re there!” Klaus complains.

“No, it’s not.” Dave reassures, intertwining his fingers with Klaus’. “But... you should be careful when those moments happen. I bet they’re having a hard time even admitting in their heads that they feel something for the other. Give them time.”

“They should have _space_ instead.” Klaus complains, stroking his hair. “But privacy is not something we can afford these weeks. If only there was a mission for them both specifically...”

Just when Klaus rests his head on Dave’s shoulder, Ben thinks for a while.

“Well...” he mutters. “We could insist on training alone, while she helps him with the thing of space-travelling to multiverses.”

“They won’t buy it.” Klaus complains. “They’re equally quickly smart. But we could try.”

**~~~**

So, they try to do that. One week later, they’re in Allison’s house again with some books, useful for them. They wait until Five or Trinity speak it for themselves.

“I don’t get the things about imagining the objects inside my head.” he tells everyone, shaking his head. “I mean, it sounds absurd to me.”

Allison sees the perfect moment and jumps into the conversation.

“You could go to Second Earth.” she suggests carefully, for it not to be too obvious. “For reading more books about telepathy, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.” Five mutters. He looks at Trinity, wearing her usual lilac clothes and a braid instead of a ponytail, and a pink bow. Five himself is wearing a pink bow within his wrist, like a bracelet. It’s dark clothes for both of the ghost brothers, a white dress for Allison, a gray shirt for Luther and a bright blue crop for Klaus with black leather pants and his own small ponytail. “Could you go with us now?”

Trinity nods and accompanies Allison and Five in a matter of seconds. It’s 4 pm, so it’s safe being in the level below the roof minor garden. They read around the drawers for a while and, slowly, little by little, Allison slips out of that zone unnoticed. She ends up looking at big photo shelves. There are thousands of magicians, a big tall magician with yellow clothes and yellow blindfold, a kid with blue clothes, a woman with pink clothes and tanned skin. She doesn’t know them or they haven’t bumped into those ones yet. She wonders when Second Earth is having an apocalypse. She wonders if there’s actually another Academy. She wonders if there are infinite Umbrella Academies in the whole omniverse. There would be infinite Reginalds and infinite Graces and Pogos and Erins...

In the meantime, Five starts reading another book and Trinity pays attention.

“Here... _The objects you carry within your vestments aren’t related to your images of your subconscious._ ” he reads, a little bit confused. “What does that mean?”

“Don’t focus on the objects you already carry, focus on your mind, the mental image of them.” she explains, looking back at him. He pays attention. “Just focus on your mind, clear it. Empty it and fill it with the object. For example, if you’d want to go to Seventh Earth, empty your mind and think about...?”

“... an axe.”

“Yeah.”

This time, Five doesn’t fade his smile, neither does she.

Trinity clears her throat and passes a page, the book still on Five’s hands.

“Here.” she reads. “For emptying your mind, you have to relax your body and close your eyes.”

“And how do I do that if we’re in the middle of a battle?”

“The others would help you.” she insists. “I’d help you.”

Five bites his lips and passes a page, touching her fingers accidentally, and she leaves the hand there. So does he. They don’t look at each other... because they can’t. Instead, they move away slowly and read the next page.

“The... The mind has to be clear and, thenk you think about the object, then you teleport...” she stutters. “That’s all. You might have to be with at least two of us the first time you do it. Just in case.”

“Including you, Tri?”

“Agh.” she complains and Five notices how her eyes roll even under the blindfold. “Not used to nicknames, really.”

“Actually, it’s Hazel's fault.” Five corrects, with nostalgia. Damn, he’s never going to admit it, but he misses Hazel. “Did your master predict him?”

“He did.” she says. “A good guy. Kinda a key role in the events you had to prevent.”

“Yeah.” he says, grinding his teeth. “I...”

“I what?” she lifts an eyebrow. “Aw, the Hargreeves. Always going through hell telling the truth and admitting feelings.”

 _“Damn true.”_ Five thinks while looking at her, thinking about her specifically.

“Well...” Five hesitates. “Well... Two things.” He swallows and two minutes pass until he’s able to speak. “First... I miss Haz. And a lot. The second...” He sighs deeply and his head shivers. “Well... I’m sorry. For having insulted you.”

Trinity’s surprised by his honesty and lifts both eyebrows.

“Really?” she mutters. Five nods with uncertainty. “Well... I... I’m sorry too. Thank you, old man.”

Five chuckles.

“You’re welcome, old woman.”

Allison arrives close and they both look at her. She has something hiding behind her back, in her hand. She shows a small picture (with one of the corners a little bit broken) of a woman around her fifties and Trinity frowns and takes it quickly. Allison is surprised for the gesture.

“Woah, I just...”

“What were you doing with that picture?” she hisses.

“I just, I was seeing pictures and I accidentally broke one, it feel to the floor.” Allison tries to explain.

“But did you break it or it fell to the floor alone?” she accuses loudly.

“It fell alone, I thought it was me-”

“That’s it!” Five screams at Trinity, who glances back. He still doesn’t know how much he cares about her, but Allison is his sister. “That’s it, Trinity. It fell to the floor alone. And there’s a lot of magic around here, this must be normal, nothing out of _this_ world.”

Trinity hides the picture, but Five gets to see the woman. Her shape is exactly to Trinity’s. He can’t see the color of her eyes, but she has eyes because, at this point, he can expect anything from magicians.

“Is that you?” Five dares to ask, and Trinity takes a step back. “Tell me the truth.” Trinity looks at him, but more uneasy and nervous than ever. “We already know you’re an old woman inside that body, so am I. We already know you’ve been watching us, helping voluntarily.” he tries to cheer up. Five totally forgets about the book and he takes a firm step to take her free hand. Trinity shivers. “Tell _me_ the truth. Was that you?”

Trinity nods slowly.

“Yeah.” she mutters. “It’s me. In my true self.” She takes a deep breath. Her hand is trembling too, so he squeezes it a bit. “That was me before leaving my original multiverse and being rescued by your dad and my master... and by others.”

“Who were those people?” Five insists. “Why did you leave your original multiverse?”

Trinity grinds her teeth with pain and a bell rings all around the shop two short times, three long, and one short. Then silence.

“They need me.”

Trinity starts getting away and Five wants to follow her.

“Trinity!” he screams, making her turn around.

“Sorry.” she says, frowning with sadness, not wanting to leave them, not wanting to leave _him_. “Sorry... they need me. Stay here until I return. If I take longer than three hours, leave.”

And Trinity leaves before Five can take more steps to hug her, but she runs away and he leaves his arms in midair. Allison taps his shoulder and he hugs her instead.

**~~~**

It’s been hours since Trinity left. Allison and Five should have already got back, so they both go to the entrance hall and Five knocks the door. The magic of the house doesn’t do anything. Five tries to think about something quickly. What if there’s an interdimensional monster around there in Prime Earth?

Suddenly, Five snaps.

“I could try.” he says. “Going to Prime. It’s just one person to teleport with me. We could try.”

Allison nods. She’s worried about many things. What if they end up in another total different multiverse?

She takes her brother’s shoulder and Five keeps his mind clear. Despite Trinity could be in total danger helping the other magicians, or his siblings being attacked in Prime Earth, he gets to empty his mind completely. Then, he thinks about a monocle and he uses his powers to go through the door.

**~~~**

The rest of the siblings, who were about to knock on the door because it’s already 9 pm and the other two haven’t returned yet, are surprised when Allison and Five appear right on the sidewalk. They get close to each other.

“How are you?” Klaus asks them both. Five looks worried. “What happened?”

“Trinity’s in a mission.” he hisses, being tired mentally all of a sudden. “And it looked dangerous, so... she’s gonna be out for a while.”

“The center of the city’s being attacked.” Ben interrupts. They all look at each other and they start to run to imminent danger.

**~~~**

They don’t have weapons. They don’t have anything, they just have themselves. They do take random shirts of a shop (like Ben once said, _the end justifies the means_ ) put it around their eyes just like the magicians. They don’t want to be recognized yet.

There are three cosmic entities attacking a neighborhood, all of rainbow colors. They try to do as much as they can. Luther helps by carrying people and enduring strong car crashes when the vehicles try to avoid the chaos. Allison rumors people to get away from there. Klaus uses his telekinesis while levitating. He does try to protect the buildings and the people by creating fields and he endures for a while, as Ben tries to attack them with his own tentacles.

It’s a big mess. The buildings end up destroyed, so do the sidewalks. However, this time the cosmic entities don’t just puff out of existence, but they fly up into the sky and get away, which means they don’t disappear. They’re still around there up in the Solar System.

Crap.

Klaus returns to the floor and, despite he’s totally exhausted, Ben gets close while Dave appears and holds his back.

“Are you fine?” Ben asks, resting his back against a wall too, close to that messed up neighborhood. Klaus nods while taking the sweat of his face off. “Okay. This was a thing...”

The rest of them get close too and take a deep breath. They somehow feel stronger about their abilities, but also weaker. They’re exhausted, especially Ben.

“Trinity should have been here.” Ben suggests. Luther frowns, trying to decipher it all. He cleans the dust off his gray shirt. “But she’s on a mission. Maybe... we could go back to Second Earth.”

Five shakes his head. He’s tired. He was already tired when he teleported himself and Allison back to Prime and now his eyebags are big and his hair is a mess, looking like a pile of straw. Overall, he’s worried about the woman he pretends he doesn’t care about.

They walk on their feet to the closest house of the center of the city, which is Allison’s. Five practically faints on the sofa and the others gather around chairs. Five doesn’t know how or when, but he falls asleep and wakes to a smell of good coffee, almost as good as Second Earth’s coffee. He wrinkles his nose because of the pang in his chest, turns around his body on the sofa and sits slowly. Klaus gets close and takes his hand for helping him stand up.

“How are you feeling?”

Five moves his head. He’s not sure.

“Well... better than yesterday.” he says with a dry voice. “I’m hungry, I didn’t even eat dinner.”

They go to the kitchen and they sit to have breakfast. There’s silence occasionally interrupted by Klaus, but there’s mostly silence. Especially when a week passes and Trinity hasn’t returned, there’s mostly silence from Five’s side. He only talks when it’s really needed. They’ve faced another interdimensional monster that was trying to _change_ space: it was interfering with physical reality, deforming the buildings, the benches, the trees. Luckily, Klaus intervened. They’ve come to the conclusion that the monsters are just a _little_ bit weak to telekinesis, which makes them think about Vanya too.

Two days later, Five snaps in Luther’s house and stands up when they’re trying to watch a movie.

“I can’t stand this anymore!” he hisses. “We have to go back to Second Earth.”

Luther is the first one to counterattack, always putting on the table both sides of versions and all of the outcomes that could end up happening, like Hazel taught them to.

“Five.” he tries to calm him down. Five just taps his foot on the floor and with arms akimbo. “Calm down, okay? Let’s take a bit of perspective. We don’t know when she’s coming back, if ever.” Five doesn’t even want to think about that chance, of her _never_ coming home. “And what if an interdimensional entity comes here when we’re there?”

Five doesn’t know what to say. Klaus recognizes the shiver of his head, his knees trembling almost not noticeable, and his stutter. He’s hanging on a thread.

“I don’t...” he stutters, moving his head and closing his eyes slowly. They wait for him to speak. They don’t want to press him. “I don’t actually have any good reason for us to go to Second Earth.” he admits. “But... I feel like we _have_ to. We could investigate which mission she’s in and do something to help. Look...” He strokes his face and swallows hard. “... we’ve seen Trinity. What she’s able to do and how she made that first monster to disappear all of a sudden. She’s bigger than we think. If... If she’s being requested for a mission, that means...”

Five frowns and bows his head. Ben turns the volume off of the movie _A Bug’s Life_.

“I’d go.” Diego supports. Normally, he would have been the first one in distrusting Trinity, like he actually did, but not now. Especially when Luther confirmed she helped Ben. “Whatever it takes.”

“Me too.” Ben states.

Klaus moves his head, trying to see the pros and cons of both sides, and ends up nodding regretfully. However, Five has to resist his urge to break something when Luther shakes his head, denying.

“No.” he states, frowning. “I know we’ve taken a long time trusting the magicians, trusting Trinity, but we have to be in our own multiverse, protect _our_ Earth.” Diego frowns for his affirmations, but Klaus agrees with Luther. It makes Klaus feel bad because of how Trinity has helped until now. They should do it in return, but they can’t. “We’re the first world to be attacked by these monsters, we should be here at any moment.” He looks at Five’s eyes. Five is nervous. “Five. Listen. I know it’s hard for you to be away from Trinity, even if you don’t want to admit it, but we have to be here.”

Five turns around and faces the wall. He knows Luther’s right. Ben knows that gesture from how Vanya expressed her opinions in their childhood: Five’s silence doesn’t mean he accepts things.

_**"NOTHING ELSE MATTERS", Metallica** _

_Never cared for what they do_

_Never cared for what they know_

_But I know_

**~~~**

It’s been already a month since Trinity left and some other weeks since they stopped going to Second Earth. It’s close to October, around the end of September. They’ve been trying to make their normal lives, but it’s hard with the magicians’ absence and how uneasy Five feels; also between battles and battles against interdimensional monsters. It’s been eight cosmic entities by now. A small number, but rough battles that leave them breathless once they’re over. Some of them disappear, some of them leave Earth on their own. Which means that they’re flying around somewhere.

It’s September 30, close to midnight, and they’re trying to watch one of Luther’s first trials released on TV. One of the best. He didn’t talk much in this one, but it was important too.

Something like a fire sounds on the rooftop of Luther’s. They all look up and wait for another noise.

“What is that?” Bopha asks. They’ve been trying to make contact with other gifted children, but they’ve only had Bopha, Gonzalo and an American girl who can create magical crystal out of nowhere; Lizzie, and she comes from time to time, not as much as Bopha and Gonzalo, but now Bopha is the only one there, apart from the two ghost brothers and Dave. Bopha was the one who called Luther for getting everyone together for watching TV. “Did you hear that?”

“We did.” Luther asks and stands up, just like Allison. Luther looks at Five. “Five, can you _carefully_ teleport to-?”

There’s a noise they recognize. Fire-ish, something the monsters tend to provoke around the buildings or even in people for killing them, which means that they haven’t found the resource of space-travel (Five) yet, but they’re close to do that. Five is about to teleport to the rooftop, but they hear someone going downstairs with heavy steps.

They all stand up just as Trinity enters the living room. Five freezes on his spot.

Allison and Klaus get close to her, even if her clothes are all bloody, even if her blindfold (still on) and her hair are a mess.

“Tri!” Klaus says, taking her shoulder and putting her exhausted body (more like _unconscious_ body) sit on the sofa. She’s beyond tired. Even under the blindfold, her eyes look spaced out, like she’s outside of her own mind. “What happened, are you fine?”

Trinity won’t answer. Her body shivers. As a legacy Hazel left for them, Luther runs to make a glass of water and hand it over to Trinity. Allison takes it for her and makes her drink clumsily.

“Tri.” Allison calls her. The magician shivers again, but she’s able to sit straighter and take the glass of water. She drinks more. “What happened? Tell us what happened.”

If The Umbrella Academy exists in other multiverses and the apocalypse has been prevented already in Prime Earth... it means that Second Earth could be close to its end of the world.

Which means...

“My master is dead.”

Five is able to react now. He takes a deep breath and sits right next to her (despite the blood) before taking her free hand. They share looks.

“What?” he asks attentively, just as the rest of them. “Tell us the truth.”

Trinity hesitates for some minutes.

“Well...” she stutters. “You know already. The apocalypse is coming to Second Earth. My master killed himself.”

They don’t need to say out loud that the master is Reginald, but from Second Earth.

They do need to say something else.

“The Academy exists in other Earths.” Five states. Trinity knows she doesn’t need to confirm it. “How?” he demands. “How? I mean... you’re helping Second Earth too?”

“ _Helping_.” she spits with hatred towards herself. “Well, just, making everything happen as it should. Right now... Second Luther is in a magical settlement in the Moon. Second Diego is saving magic-less people. Second Allison is releasing her own brand new line of dresses for magicians. Second Klaus is getting high, numbing his powers, even numbing the magic he has learned so far. Second old-Five is figuring out how to go back in time. Second Ben is around his brother and Second Vanya is practising with her violin.”

They keep quiet for a while. They don’t know what to say.

“Everything happens the same?” Luther dares to ask.

“Yeah.” Trinity mutters and they all shiver. “Second Five turns back in time as a young boy. They try to search for a way to stop the apocalypse. Second Vanya gives lessons to a fake student called Leonard... she’s ascended to first chair...” She takes a deep breath. “Second Klaus is kidnapped by two black-magic practicants, from the Commission from that multiverse.” Klaus shivers for what’s coming. “Second Klaus takes a _strongbox_ thinking it has money. He turns back in time... and loses Second David.” Klaus bows his head and Dave squeezes his hand. “He returns and starts getting sober and starts practising magic... They go to the theater to stop Second Vanya and they _will_ go back in time too. All over again.”

Apparently, thinking about the truth of freewill wasn’t the worst part of all of this. It’s the sense of your story being repeated at the other end of the cosmos. Of your story not being so special.

“Is there...?” Luther starts asking. Five grinds his teeth and cleans Trinity’s tears with a soft hand. “Is there anything we can do there?”

“No.” she cuts. “I tried. We can’t go to Second Earth for more than eight days. Its original timeline will be destroyed in eight days. After this, the magicians have to create another interdimensional vortex in the fake building’s doors before we can go back to it again in their new timeline where Second Earth’s copies are. And even after that, the Academy will still be destroyed in eight more of their days, when they truly stop the end of the world.”

They keep silent once more. They don’t know what to say. Five doesn’t know what to say for the first time in his life. Now, she truly looks like him when he was feeling desperate, alone and lost when he was in the future. _Two of a kind_. The difference is that Five had some self-respect for himself in the future for going back to 2019, while Trinity lacks of that, wanting to give up on everything.

“Trinity.” Five says and she looks back at him. He squeezes her hand and her glance feels bitter. “You’re not alone, okay?”

 _Not anymore_ , Trinity realizes. That’s why she decided to help them.

“I know.” she chuckles with a dry voice. Five can’t resist, so he rests his head on her shoulder. “By the way, happy birthday.”

They all look at the clock on the wall. It’s past midnight. Five chuckles too and cuddles closer to her. He hasn’t ever been into physical affection. But now he does.

They feel better than they expected. They try to distract themselves for hours because they can’t fall asleep, not even poor Bopha, so they see more of Luther’s trials, play board games and eat something together when Trinity goes downstairs after taking a quick shower to clean herself from the blood. She has a pink crop and white shorts Klaus lends kindly to her and, as usual, her purple blindfold, with wet hair. In case, Five stays close. And he’s aware of it, fully aware of the closeness. He secretly loves it.

“I don’t like fries.” Trinity confesses around the coffee table and almost 3 am. Klaus pretends to be offended. “Don’t look at me like that! You know what? There’s real food back in Second Earth. Apart from Klaus coming back from time to time and other minor magicians, Luther was the only one in the Academy, remember? And he’s in the Moon right now. It’s night there too. It’ll be okay.”

“Right.” Prime Luther says. They can’t sleep anyway. “Let’s go.”

**~~~**

They end up, as usual, in the entrance hall. However, she gets away from them because she has been requested for a small mission (before Five worries) about sending a message to Second Luther to the magicians’ settlement in the Moon for him to come back. Also, she has to send that same message to the other magical versions of themselves, so she's going to take long. Trinity trusts them, so she leaves them alone.

“Keep calm around here.” Trinity insists some yards away, still on the entrance hall. “Don’t mess anything up. I trust you.” She’s about to leave, but Five takes steps forward and hugs her. She didn’t expect that, but she accepts it. They hug for some seconds. It’s shocking because the last time they saw each other they couldn’t even hug. They’ve been longing each other for so long that it feels like being rolled over by a car. Five is a little bit angry to himself. Damn. She really has an effect on him. The others are still behind them, but... “Take care.”

“You too.” he says and they look at each other’s eyes. Crap. The rest is still there, pretending not to look, but she’s been missing for a month... thing he doesn’t want to get through ever again. “I’m not waiting for you another month.”

Trinity chuckles and accepts the kiss on her temple. She gets away and Five doesn’t receive any taunt for that kiss.

They go upstairs and end up in the level below the minor garden. It’s dark outside.

Luther takes Five hand’s. Luther points at the weird gap in the wall they sneaked in for the first and last time. Five hesitates for a while. But ends up nodding. Five turns to the rest and teleports them all to the other side.

**~~~**

“It’s shitty dark.” Ben spits, even when Diego gets to turn on the few bulbs of the ceiling. They still have the flashlights on. They try to investigate in the crates, but there’s not much until Ben spots a very small tape on the very top of the shelf. It’s almost not there, so he draws everyone’s attention. “You all see that thing or it’s just me?”

“Yeah.” Klaus mutters. He closes his eyes for concentration and when he opens them, he levitates the tape and it ends up in his hands with the telekinesis. “Got it.”

“It’s dusty.” Luther coughs when he takes it cleans it. Once that’s done, Luther shakes it a little bit in the air and they all look at the tape. They’re shocked to see the title, blurry, but still there. “... Zero Earth?”

Five’s eyes shiver.

“I thought there wasn’t a _Zero Earth_.” Diego frowns, looking at the tape. They don’t know what to say, so Diego does what he always does; keep searching for clues no matter what. He gets close to the hardest crates to get access too and looks. The others do like him. They find maps, drawings, a broken bow of a violin. Then, Diego climbs carefully some crates and grabs a picture of the size of a normal. It’s completely dusty. They put it right over the TV. Luther cleans the wooden top. “ _Zero Earth_.”

The truth hurts, as Klaus learned in the infraworld, but it needs to be known.

Luther takes a deep breath and cleans the glass over the picture. They all take a step back to look at it.

There are six people, from right to left; a man around his sixties and the rest of the people around their thirties. A very blond, buff guy. An angry, blond guy with a patch on his eye. A beautiful woman with blue hair. A man with sunglasses, ginger and emo-ish clothes. Two empty spots, like if they were missing or dead.

And a woman with short hair and farther apart from the rest of the group, not physically. Brown hair and slim. Exactly like Trinity, but years older. Five stares at her.

 _Zero Earth_.

Another Academy.

Five falls to the floor and kneels on it. He somehow finds the courage to murmur something.

“She's Vanya.”

**~~~**

If Five felt uneasy in this whole September, he feels more now. This is unnerving. He doesn’t like this, he doesn’t like this at all. Just when he was starting to open his heart to Trinity a little bit...? He’s still on the floor. The others try to reassure him by saying that Second Reginald must have forbidden her to tell them the truth and that their _relationship_ shouldn’t be affected.

“It’s been affected!” Five screams, uncaring if Second Grace or Second Pogo hear. He’s not frowning, his eyes are desperate and in disbelief at the same time. Ben strokes his shoulder in compassion. “It’s been affected! She-She’s... Vanya, my _sister_...”

“But Trinity is not.” Luther counterattacks. “You haven’t been raised with her.”

“Oh!” Five says with sarcasm, standing up like the others (except Klaus and Bopha, who are sitting on some chairs) and walking from one side of the room to the other. “Oh! Does that mean you would bang your other self from Second Earth?”

“No, because he’s me!” Luther screams back. He takes a deep breath and calms down. He doesn’t want them to be discovered. “He’s another version of myself, but... we don’t know Trinity’s story. She’s not _Vanya_. She’s something different. We’ve seen that. Something different must have happened in this Zero Earth because she hasn’t mentioned it at all and because the rest of the Reginalds found her out of nowhere.”

Five tries to calm down. He strokes the back of his neck.

“Okay.” he hisses. He points at the small tape in Luther’s hand. “The answers are in that tape.” They sit in front of one TV while Luther takes a long time to put it successfully in the player. The TV, like the first time, shows no-signal. “Wait for it. This is it.”

Images start appearing. They kneel or sit on the floor. And they pay attention.

Despite knowing this can hurt.

**[...]**

_“911, what’s your emergency?”_

_“We-We’re in the spaceship 4029, we-we were about to arrive at the Moon when... a light came in and...!”_

_“Excuse me, sir?... Light?”_

_“Yes! Light out of nowhere! We...!”_

_“Sir, sir, calm down, please, pay attention, describe it to me.”_

_“The light’s like a sphere,_ **_yellow_** _, like a small star, with tentacles! A lot of tentacles, it destroyed our wings...!”_

 _“What is the_ light _doing right now, si-?”_

_“It’s trying to reach the ship! We’re trying to avoid it, bu-”_

_“We’ll send help right now, please, sir, stand by-”_ the other side of the phone stops sounding at all. The lady of the emergencies looks at the screen, with no signal at all and looks everywhere. She scratches her thighs out of nervousness. “Hello?”

“He won’t answer.” her chief insists and he knows perfectly that there’s no other way. NASA is very busy right now and they just can schedule a mission right now for rescuing. “We need something right now and against that monster... there’s only one way to keep it at bay.”

“Which is?”

“I know a guy who runs an academy with super-powered people.”

~~**Please stand by** ~~

He receives a long message. He reads it anyway, from the top to the bottom. When he reads what they’re going to do, he stands up immediately and runs to the entrance hall of the Academy. He bumps into Pogo looking at his pocket watch. He looks stressed

“We have a mission.”

“I know.” Pogo says, taking off his glasses and faces Luther’s serious glance despite the difference of height. “I’ve already called what I could get.”

Luther turns to his right when Diego appears with his characteristic eyepatch and his beloved sister, with a cute blue ponytail and dark clothes.

“Hello.” Allison says with sarcasm to Pogo and smiles briefly to Luther. The behavior is just like in their childhood but not at all at the same time. Luther doesn’t smile back physically, only on the inside. “This is all you could get, Pogo? Really?”

Once Allison, always Allison.

“Let’s just get this done.” Diego spits, looking at one of his favorite blades casually on his hand. He crosses his arms with dignity. He can’t wait for the mission. Once it’s over, he can be free. However, the least involved he’s in this, the better. “Our ship is ready?”

“It is.” Pogo answers. He looks at all of them. He seems so focused and spaced out at the same time. “You just have to put on your space suits. The mission is going close to the Moon where the 4029 is, get the astronauts out of their spaceship before the monsters destroy the 4029 and return.” He takes a deep breath. “Luther will pilot the ship. Diego will be a backup. Allison will keep the spaceship intangible...” He stops. “Easy, but precise. You’ll need someone with telekinesis.”

“Klaus is in rehab.” Diego says. “Anyone else?”

“Yes.” Pogo says, pointing at the stairs. The four of them turn around and see as a young woman gets out of the shadows and carefully gets close. She has the spacesuit, short hair and her glance shows that she doesn’t trust them and prefers to stay away from them. She somehow feels sure about this because she feels useless if she doesn’t use her ability. She feels the suspicious glance of Luther and the compassionate look of her sister. “Hello, Vanya.”

She doesn’t say anything.

They were in the middle of their last mission when Vanya was being a liability, like always. But then, Vanya manifested just a little bit of telekinesis, almost ruining the battle. Luther hasn’t trusted by then, Diego keeps talking to her, Allison feels just pity for her and Klaus wasn’t even in that mission, neither did Five or Ben, but Vanya felt terrible for having powers she wanted but realizing she shouldn’t have wished for it, not when her siblings reacted that way. The _best_ reactions to her powers were Pogo, the only one who has treated her like a person besides Diego, and Allison, but her compassion was fake because she just felt bad for how messed up Vanya ended up after that mission. It wasn’t real trust. She just wanted to help her sister out of pity.

“Hi, Vanya.” Diego greets with normality. They usually text each week.

“Vanya...” Allison tries to say, but Vanya wrinkles her nose and deviates her look.

“Don’t.” Vanya mutters. Diego accuses Allison of being little subtle. She should be more delicate with these things. “Let’s get over with this.”

~~**Please stand by** ~~

They’re already preparing themselves on the ship. They’re sitting and putting on the seatbelts. The suit is simple and efficient, courtesy of Reginald Hargreeves before dying. Pogo is back in the Academy, in the control area and talking to Luther to make sure everything’s okay. Their spaceship is over the garden. It’s around midday when Luther starts turning on the ship while Allison is the co-pilot. Diego and Mom (in case of emergencies) are in the two seats behind and, at the end of all, Vanya sitting alone.

“Are you feeling weird something, Vanya?” Mom asks. She hasn’t manifested her telekinesis since the first time, so she wonders how she’s going to do this. Maybe her sister by rumoring her...? “Are you...?”

“Please, shut up.” Diego spits to their mother. Their mother feels such like a liability to Diego. “Let’s do this. In silence, please.”

Mom keeps her mouth shut and puts her hands over her perfectly ironed skirt.

“We need your telekinesis.” Luther tells Vanya, turning his head just a little bit to the background. He’s not aggressive with her like Five was in their childhood, but not totally trustful towards her like Diego. Vanya tries to take a deep breath, both for not breaking down when her brother looks back and because the ship has already been started. It’s all trembling. “For keeping at bay the energy of that yellow in case it sees us.”

Vanya nods slowly and Luther turns on the main engine. They get ready mentally.

“Okay.” Luther says, serious. “Ready. Five... Four... Three... Two... One... Takeoff.”

It takes two hours until they’re outside Earth and half an hour until they see the Moon. They all see around themselves. They’re all on edge, but Allison is the most.

“I can see the ship.” Diego says out loud and everyone realizes about that. The Moon is there, the wingless ship is there, but not the monster. “Where the hell is it?” Just when Diego finishes saying that, a yellow light almost blinds them all and appears in its shape of yellow light with yellow tentacles, between the Moon and the ship in danger. They’ve faced a lot of monsters in their old missions, but not something like this. “What the hell is that?”

“The monster.” Luther says pressing some buttons for increasing speed. He remembers all of the lessons in their childhood about cosmic energy and its danger. “It comes from the energy of a dying star, a yellow star. It’s said that these monsters want to mess up with the only universe in the whole omniverse.”

“Why?”

“For us avoiding creating more multiverses.” he answers out loud. That flying thing is precisely quiet. “There’s only one parallel universe and one multiverse and they want to keep it that way.”

The ship gets close and the monster tries to attack it. Allison has to get her main seat belt off for rumoring the spaceship into being intangible, not solid. This entity tries to get close to them, but it seems to be furious for not being able to kill them. Unluckily, that makes it focus back to the ship of the astronauts. They stay close to the Moon.

“It’s starting to destroy the back of their ship.” Allison says, attentive but keeping it together. “What do we do?”

Luther thinks fast. He presses the communication button and tries to read the closest signal from the other ship he can get. It takes a little bit long.

“Spaceship 1432-Q.” Luther says out loud, close to the mic in front of him; they’re not wearing helmets because they don’t need them. The poor ship is being surrounded by the tentacles. “Spaceship 1432-Q. Does anybody copy?”

Something sounds in the speakers.

_“Help us..!”_

“Sir.” Luther screams with control. “You have to keep calm, okay? We’re one mile away. Follow my instructions. You all have to get to the back of your ship because it’s the last thing that monster is gonna destroy. One of my mates will tie the back of our ship with yours with a thread.” Allison reads his mind and takes all of her seat belts off and stands up. She carefully walks to the back of the ship and unrolls the thick thread. “You copy?”

_“We copy! Help us...!”_

The signal is interrupted. The monster must be already messing up with the top of the 4029. He hopes the astronauts are already in the back of the ship, as he ordered them.

“Okay.” Luther says, getting the ship closer little by little for the entity not to notice them too much. “Go, Allison. Be _careful_.”

She activates her helmet and presses a button on the wall so that there’s a safe barrier behind the seats. She presses another one so that the gates of the back open little by little. She sighs deeply and throws the thread out in space.

“I heard a rumor that the thread is tying to that other spaceship.”

The thread does its job.

Luther presses a small button so that everyone can see everything in the cameras.

“Shit...” Luther hisses clicking some numbers. “This can’t be happening!”

“What?” Diego asks and looks at a camera. “The thread is too short?”

Luther tries to be patient.

“Vanya.” She snaps when Luther mentions her and turns around his head. She’s needed. It feels weird. “You have to go the back of our ship and levitate the thread so that it reaches the 4029.” Vanya blinks a lot of times. It seems to complicated that’s she’s stroking her sleeve again. Get it?”

Vanya nods slowly. She doesn’t know if her telekinesis is that big to hold an entire part thread that big or how to concentrate to activate her ability, but she has no choice.

“Okay.” she just says. After taking a deep breath, she takes off her seatbelts, slowly to the opened gates that show the outer space and holds onto the wall, waiting for her moment. Allison tries to tap her shoulder in comfort, but Vanya shivers putting her helmet on when she crosses the barrier. She coughs. “I’m ready.”

Allison takes a deep breath. She wants her sister to be safe.

“I heard a rumor that you’re gonna pull the thread by telekinesis.”

Vanya feels something. A pit in her stomach and something itchy in her arms. She then looks at the thread her sister has, takes it herself and lets it go out in space. Later, she’s pushing the thread farther from them. A quarter of an hour later, it’s already reaching the back of 4029.

“Ready to go.” Diego screams after looking at the screen. He can see two astronauts grabbing desperately into the thread. He hopes that there are more survivors. Luther turns to Vanya from his pilot seat.

“Now!”

Vanya looks at the long thread, connected now to the back of the ship in danger. Allison is attentive to her. She’s never thought someone like her sister would be doing something so brave. Vanya takes a deep breath and raises her arms again for pulling the thread back. The destroyed ship, the remaining part, is getting close little by little. The monster doesn’t realize what's happening until it’s another quarter an hour later, when that thing looks at Vanya when the astronauts are already getting inside little by little. Allison has to be rumoring some of them because they’re too scared to move off of the back of their spaceship.

She doesn’t know how due to the fact that the entity doesn’t have _eyes_ , but the monster _looks_ straight at her. Vanya shivers. She’s the last one in the gates of the background. She’s about to go back inside, but one of the tentacles of energy extends to her in a matter of milliseconds and grabs her out of the ship.

“Vanya!” Allison screams, but the doors close. She looks at Luther with desperation. “Let me go!”

“To what? We can’t do anything to help!” Luther screams back because Allison doesn’t seem to understand. Luther looks to the controls and clicks the mic of his sister. “Vanya. Luther here, you copy?” The signal is very bad and it’s even worse with all the noise as Mom is attending the scared and even six harmed astronauts. “Vanya! It’s ship 1432-Q, you copy!”

She doesn’t answer and Allison wants to scream.

“Do something!”

He copes with the stress of the situation, shakes his head and turns on more cameras so that the really see what’s happening.

They’re shocked when they see white energy coming out of their sister while the monsters tries to attack that strange pale energy. Vanya defends herself without knowing it, so does the entity, who shoots her with its yellow energy. However, the white energy starts consuming the yellow one so much that the monster starts... _disappearing_. Allison realizes first that Vanya’s power is absorbing an entire cosmic entity somehow. If they were shocked to see she had telekinesis, that falls short now.

They hear Vanya’s scream before both the mic and all of the cameras turn off. More like, they’re destroyed.

Allison doesn’t care about Luther, so she quickly presses the emergency button and opens the gates once more. Once they open, she desperately looks for her sister. It’s been five minutes, but she doesn’t see her. Before Luther doesn’t let her to, Allison grabs one of the smaller threads and connects it to her belt before jumping into outer space. She uses her jets to fly around the ship. She sees her sister, floating in the middle of the space, fainted, and with no monster around. She can’t see it anywhere. Vanya has absorbed it.

Allison floats close to her sister and grabs her in her arms. Her astronaut helmet is completely gone, but she’s breathing.

“Luther!” Allison calls in her mic. “Drag us in.”

Luther presses the button and the thread starts to unroll alone. Both sisters are dragged inside the ship. Allison leaves her sister on the floor before Mom attends her.

_**"CHANGES", by David Bowie** _

_Just gonna have to be a different man_

_Time may change me_

_But I can't trace time_

~~**Please stand by** ~~

When Vanya opens her eyes everything she see is light, so she closes her eyes back again because of the pain in her brain. Then she hears mumbles and the light seems to fade. She opens her eyes in the second attempt, so she’s able to clear her sight. The ceiling is completely metal, just like her mattress-less and sheet-less stretcher. She feels uncomfortable.

She coughs and she notices as Mom hurries up to give her water with a straw on her right. Vanya looks at Mom briefly before drinking. She’s in the emergencies room in the Academy. Pogo is looking at her with pity from the door, but in silence. None of her siblings are here. After drinking, she gets her head back on the solid metal. She has wires all connected to her body and a screen next to her head for being controlled.

“A lot happened out there, sweetie.” Mom tells her after leaving the glass on a tray. Vanya doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but then, remembers. Crap. A lot _did_ happen back there. Luckily, her mother’s hand on her cheek soothes her a little bit. “Do you remember anything, dear?”

Vanya sighs.

“I... We opened the gates... I brought back the astronauts... the monster saw me and grabbed me out... and I... it disappeared.”

“You don’t know what happened to that entity?” she asks slowly and carefully, taking her hand when Vanya shakes her head. “You absorbed it.”

Vanya frowns.

“Impossible.” she spits, confused, more than exhausted. What makes her think she can do something like that? Vanya is mature enough to know that self-hatred doesn’t lead you anywhere in life, but... “Impossible. Do you-Do you think _I_ could do something like that...?”

“You can.” Mom insists looking at her in the eye. “You’re gonna achieve great things and you’re already starrting. You’re gonna save the whole omniverse and you’ve started by saving some astronauts, apart from your siblings.”

“Siblings that don’t like me.” she spits with a dry voice. She knows that her family doesn’t exactly hate her, but their relationship could be one hundred percent better. “Something else I should know?”

“The energy levels of your body are _much_ stronger.” Mom reports. They both look at the screen. Vanya checks out that she’s right. The energy inside her feels stronger. She feels different as well. “You have to be careful with your temper, okay? You absorbed the yellow energy of a monster that was born from a dying star. Be careful, okay, dear?” Vanya nods slowly despite not understanding anything. “Fine. You did good today. You’re gonna make great things.”

Vanya huffs a laugh, closing her eyes.

“Like what?” she hisses.

“Well... Before your father died, he didn’t tell me much. But you’re gonna have hurdles, a lot. You’re gonna be trained with a little touch of magic... You’re gonna fall in love...” Vanya lets go a mocking laugh. She doesn’t see herself with a man, nor a woman, anyone. Impossible. “... you’re gonna save the omniverse. And not alone.”

“That’s what I feel the most right now. Alone.”

~~**Please stand by** ~~

It’s been one week since Vanya absorbed that monster into herself, all of it, as Pogo confirmed two days ago. There aren’t more signals of that entity flying around space, anywhere, and there hasn’t been more danger than another monster exactly like the yellow one, but with rainbow colors.

Why is this entity different?

Everything has been worse. Despite Mom and Pogo having been trying to make her feel like home, Diego’s has been keeping distance a little bit more (but still talks to her), Luther shows distrust whenever she passes by and Allison has only pity in her glance. She doesn’t need that right now. Despite that, she does speak to her sister, and a lot, getting to know each other a little better.

She needs answers, so that she can cope with powers she didn’t know she had.

For finding answers, she’s going to need to start from the very beginning.

She tries to ask for their files to Pogo, but no. Mom pretends not to listen when she’s asked. Vanya decides to do it on her own and it’s not easy. With Pogo’s help, she would have taken like two hours, but she takes two more weeks to sneak out safely into their father’s office and take her own file.

 _San Petersburg_.

Going to the place she was born can’t help at all and she knows that. But she needed to do this. She’s tired of being _still._ The training Pogo tries to impose is not easy because she’s afraid of _activating_ the monster inside her and her telekinesis must be much stronger now that she has new energy carrying within; Pogo wanted to talk to her tomorrow about a solution their father left as an emergency case, but she’s scared of it. She left with some money, simple clothes, the same short hair, but glasses. She was about to knock on Allison’s door, but she remembered the forced pity in her eyes. It’s much easier to talk to her in letters. She turned around and left straight to Russia, not before telling Pogo _she went on vacation to Moscow_.

From Moscow to San Petersburg, she has to take a train. In her wagon there are only three people, three people that leave when there’s only half an hour of her own trip. She's alone in that space from the second floor of the waggon, so she takes out something from her only suitcase and opens the case of her violin. She takes it out with her bow and starts playing. The dying star has been asking her to play her instrument since they _joined_.

Somehow, she feels something being _activated, impulsed_ inside her soul. She closes her eyes as her limbs relax and she feels her _being_ going everywhere, through the train, through the tracks, through the engine. It feels good playing her soul into the air, into the world. She wants to fly away, she wants to be free from everything. Something cracks and, when she opens her eyes, she sees as white energy goes through the curtains of the windows and it moves the doors of the wagon. The thing is that she doesn’t stop because flying away feels good.

She does stop when the train goes slower. She keeps the violin and the bow inside the case, which she also keeps inside the suitcase. It’s cold, so when she gets out of the station she puts on a coat and a scarf. She rests some hours in the hotel. Next day, she goes to the village, to the only address she has.

It’s raining a little bit, but luckily, she gets on time to the porch of that neighbor before it can possibly pour. She leaves her bag on the floor, takes a deep breath and knocks on the door. After insisting, a grumpy, blonde woman in her forties opens quickly, but her face falls down when she sees Vanya, who doesn’t know what to say. She should have seen this coming. _How naive_ , he can listen to Five’s words, even if he left when they were kids. She should have seen that she wouldn’t just bump into her mother.

Nevertheless, Vanya keeps it together and sighs.

“Miss Sharapova?” she carefully says, looking at the correct name and the only address she could get on her own. The woman nods slowly and stays in the door frame. “Ehm, I wanted to ask you some questions, if you have the time. Please.”

Sharapova shivers and tries to close the door, but Vanya puts her foot in between in time.

“Please.” Vanya asks. She has to take her own hair away from her face because of the humid weather. “Please. I need to know certain things. You met once sir Reginald Hargreeves?”

Sharapova closes her eyes. She must be one of those scientists that always seeks for truth and when one of Reginald’s children is right in front of her, she can’t lie right now.

“I used to work with him and his twin.” she hisses, still not opening the door. “But they argued and split their association.”

“What was their association about?”

Sharapova, apparently, goes through hell trying to keep the truth but ends up grinding her teeth and opening the door.

“Come in.” she hisses. Vanya comes inside and Sharapova closes the door with lock. Vanya leaves her bag and her violin case next to the sofa she sits on, after she admits to herself that Sharapova is not offering her a drink or anything, not even the bathroom. “What do you wanna know?”

Vanya doesn’t know where to start, so she shrugs and gets serious.

“Well...” she sighs. “The association. I didn’t know my father had a twin. What did they work in?”

Sharapova sighs too, sitting one yard away on the coffee table.

“His twin was called Erin.” she starts. “They worked with their father, with your grandfather, to search resources of how to expand the omniverse. They came to the conclusion that a space-time travel machine could do that job, but that first prototipe only ended up exploding and giving... giving them both powers.”

Vanya frowns.

“My father had powers?” she stutters but tries to keep it together. She takes a deep breath. Something feels in her chest... “And-And what about Erin? Where is she?”

“She’s trying to run the association on her own now that her father and her twin are dead.” Sharapova stutters too. “Reginald... Reginald predicted a whole bunch of things when he acquired abilities. He predicted a lot and not just about this universe.”

“Our father told us this multiverse and universe is the only one.”

“Well, he lied.” Sharapova spits and Vanya hates to know that it’s true. “Actually... He wasn’t lying about _that_. This is the only multiverse, but the monsters have come here because of the space-time mess the machine provoked when it exploded. The monsters... They want to find the _resource_ of what caused that explosion before that machine causes more multiverses.”

“But my father is dead.” Vanya spits. “And Erin... Where is she?”

“Trying to run away from the monsters.” Sharapova sighs. “I think she can run away, get away with this. If the entities find her... they will destroy everything around the omniverse.”

Vanya doesn’t know what to expect. _How naive._ She expected such a different conversation.

“E-Everything?” Sharapova nods to her question. “But maybe... we can let her run away from them for her not to be killed...”

“Erin wants to turn back in time to save her mother.” Sharapova reports liken if what she had just said it’s madness. “If she runs away successfully, she gets to turn back and creating another universe would mean chaos. We don’t know which else that machine can do. Erin has to be eliminated. Before the monsters find her and kill her themselves.”

Vanya is totally lost. First, absorbing powers she didn’t want. Now, _this_. What next?

“Oh, god...” she stutters, feeling terrible. “W-What about my father? Did he predict all of this?”

Sharapova opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She takes long answering, but it’s hard when Vanya herself is frowning and clenching her fists.

“Yes.” the woman mutters, mumbling and suddenly sweating despite the rain. “Even you absorbing the entity.”

Vanya grinds her teeth and the walls of the house start trembling.

“... What?”

“He-He just predicted everything necessary.” the woman excuses herself, as if she didn’t know what was going on, but she really does. “He didn’t tell me how or why, but you _needed_ to absorb the entity. Reginald realized that he needed to abuse his children in order for them to be truly strong for facing the monsters and at the same time eliminating Erin in time for her not to-”

“Stop!” Vanya screams and the wind around the house increases. “Stop.”

Sharapova stands up at the same time as her, looking around the walls trembling.

“Please, Vanya!” the woman begs, suddenly feeling weak and scared for her safety. “Please! Stop with this!”

Vanya realizes Sharapova is talking about the walls shaking and is surprised by that too.

“It’s not me.” she hisses, but the walls won’t stop shaking, neither does the wind. Which means that it’s not caused by her ability. She doesn’t know what it is until she remembers this same feeling from the spaceship before it took takeoff to the Moon. She glances at Sharapova. “Wait here.”

Vanya takes the case of her violin and puts it on her back, like a school bag. She gets out of the house with attentive steps and sees as a dark, private jet is landing correctly one hundred yards away at the other side of the street. She frowns when she sees her siblings getting out of the jet.

She gets off the porch and walk until they’re facing each other despite the distance. Everyone looks the same, except Allison, who looks worried, but _actually_ worried. Not out of pity.

“What are you doing here?” Vanya spits without moving from her spot.

“We’re here to help you.” Allison responds uncertain but remaining strong. “Pogo told us that you absorbed that entity and that he figured out you came here to investigate yourself. We can help you this time for real-”

“You conveniently want to help me now.” Vanya figures out. “Because I’m dangerous. Because now I’m someone. You wouldn’t do that if I didn’t have powers.” Allison keeps quiet. She knows she’s true and that is unnerving. None of them wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t dangerous. “You don’t know what happened with dad, right?” They shiver at that mention. “His powers come from a _machine_ that gave him and his twin abilities. He predicted _everything_ he could before searching for us. He abused us on purpose, for being prepared against the monsters. Our dear aunt wants to go back in time to save her mother, but the monsters don’t want that, so we have to kill her before the entities do.”

Allison looks confused and Luther shivers again. Diego doesn’t know what to say at the beginning.

“That doesn’t matter.” Allison insists, taking a step forward, and Luther has to resist the urge of taking her hand. “We can... We can help you train, so that we can kill Erin.”

“We’re not killing anyone.” Luther spits, looking at Allison, who rolls her eyes. “We won’t.”

“Fine!” Allison accepts after a while. Diego nods in agreement. “Are you with us?”

“No.” Vanya interrupts. “I’ll make things right. Depends on you if you want to do it with me or not. If Erin and dad hadn’t argued, all of this wouldn’t have happened. We can do anything to face dad because he’s dead, but we can face her, make her pay for messing around with time. We can do this.”

She has tried, but Luther shakes his head to Allison, who takes a deep breath before looking back at her sister.

“It’s not possible.” Allison says. “But we still have to figure out more about them. The twins, the monsters. Maybe there’s another way to make this right.”

Vanya grinds her teeth and shivers. How are they going to make this right all together if they haven’t supported each other all of their lives? How they’ve set Vanya aside because she was normal? If they want to help her now for real, it’s just because the end of the world is coming because of the monsters their father provoked and because they have no other choice.

Vanya opens her eyes.

“You’ve set me aside all of my life.” she stutters and her sister swallows. “What makes you think it’s gonna be different this time?”

Allison doesn’t know what to say to convince her that she’s truly going to make a difference this time in their lives. She can just rumor her, but it’d make things worse.

“Well, I’d start by-”

“Van,” Diego says taking a step forward, surprising his two siblings. Diego seems more focused on the moment. “Both of us know we have a special bond. What about we take a step forward together?”

His reassuring look soothes her. Vanya tightens her eyelids and takes a deep breath.

“How am I gonna activate my ability without activating the monster?”

Diego and Allison look at Luther, who tries to be delicate with what he’s going to say.

“The emergency plan dad had for you.” Vanya opens her eyes wider, frowning, before Luther’s answer. “I know it must be scary because we don’t know what it was all about, but we’d take you out of it as soon as it hurts a little bit.”

It would hurt?

Vanya swallows. She has no other choice.

~~**Please stand by** ~~

“She didn’t follow my _advice_.” Mom stutters, playing with her hands, so Allison soothes her by tapping her back. “I told her that she needed to control her temper now that she absorbed that monster... and she used her powers alone in that train... she could rage on because of me...”

“... clearly that didn’t work.” Diego interrupts her and puts his hands over the table in the meeting room. They’re all there. “Good job, Mom. What do we do now?”

“Pogo.” Luther draws his attention. “What could we do now?” He takes a deep breath. “The... emergency...?”

Pogo hesitates, deviating his look to the stairs that lead to their bedrooms.

“Yes. Emergency.” he says taking his cane and tapping the floor with it. He looks at their spider on the ceiling. It has a lot of little diamonds. “Prepare the analysis room.” he tells to Mom, who stands up from her chair and goes to do that. “Vanya must go to that room now. Don’t talk to her if you wanna mess with her. It’s better silence.” he says with a dangerous look that is dedicated especially to Luther. He feels guilty. “We’d need someone that can keep the house physically safe if she gets out of control, so Allison can’t warp.”

That’s right. If, for example, some walls are falling, Allison can’t rumor the walls into being normal again one by one. She could do that, but they need another back up.

“You have to figure out a way of getting rid of the interdimensional monsters without killing Erin.” Pogo goes on. “And for that, you’d have to investigate Erin.”

“Did you know that he had an... _aunt_?”

“No.” Pogo says slowly. “But I think Erin’s around the east, in Pennsylvania. She’s hard to access, so you’ll need someone with telekinesis.”

“But Vanya can’t help, she’ll be busy with the emergency plan.” Luther spit and, then, he clenches his jaw for the realization. Diego nods, knowing who they’re actually talking about. “No... No. I don’t wanna-”

“We have to.” Diego interrupts. “We don’t know anyone else with telekinesis.”

~~**Please stand by** ~~

A random woman with white hair complains when he starts hearing the bongos, so she covers herself with the sheets of the hospital. Another man around his seventies, in that same recovery room, wakes up and covers his ears. A poor child with his broken leg covers his ears with his pillow. Another man, with less patience, is in the stretcher right next to the person who’s playing the bongos, so the guy growls, grabs his TV controller and throws it to the curtain but pointing at the bed. The bongos stops.

“Shut up, Hargreeves!” the man screams. He can hear as the young man complains, which means that the controller has at least hit his head. “It’s 2 goddamn am!”

The man covers his ears and tries to sleep. At the other side of the curtain, the ginger man strokes his head and mutters an _ouch_.

“Fuck.” he mutters, putting the controller on his night stand. “I wasn’t even talking, technically!”

“I told you not to play bongos right in the middle of the night.”

Klaus looks at the feet of his bed and rolls his eyes.

“I couldn’t sleep.” he complains, resting his back on the pillow. “Too many voices, Benny.”

“Where did you get the bongos anyway?” Ben asks, getting closer.

“State secret. Shhh.” They keep quiet... for two seconds. “Well, actually, I’m hungry. I wonder if there’s any morphine...”

“You’re not in pain.” Ben spits. “If you’re hungry, you should eat _food._ ”

“Drugs numb hunger apart my powers, remember dummy?” he mutters with sarcasm. He’s not in a terrible shape, but he definitely could be better. “Besides, the sexy nurses won’t give food at this hour.”

“Huh.” Ben spits, sitting on the bed. “You could make such great things... Even better than me, at least, not anymore.” Klaus pretends not to listen. They’ve had this conversation a lot of times, so it’s getting repetitive. “About the nurses. Which one? Taylor or Alex?”

“Hmm, Taylor was whiny. Alex is the best.” he answers. Then, they hear some doctors entering and murmuring. Ben stands up despite they can’t hear or see them. The doctors get close. “Wow, _hallo_ , doctors. Did I do something wrong?”

“Apart from stealing morphine and molly, nothing at all.” the oldest doctor frowns. Klaus pretends to be innocent. “You’re leaving right now.”

“What?” Klaus screams and he’s thrown more controllers again.

~~**Please stand by** ~~

They’re all waiting outside the bathroom of that level because the recovery room doesn’t have a bathroom.

“This hospital sucks.” Diego spits, keeping his knife on the tip of his finger by the pointy part easily. They see Klaus getting out of the bathroom with dark clothes on, his black penny lane coat pants, licking a lollipop, dark sunglasses, and messy ginger hair. “There he comes.” Klaus gets close and Allison taps his shoulder as a greeting. They hand-five. “Hello, Klaus. We have a big mission right now.”

“Anything to do with ghosts?”

“Not actually.” Luther whispers for not waking anybody up. “It has to do with Vanya. She-”

“Oh, Vanya! Haven’t heard from her in a while, how is she? Is she good?”

“That doesn’t matter. We’ll explain everything in the jet.”

Which reminds them about the monster.

“So, she just absorbed it?” Klaus asks, finishing his lollipop. “Wow, her telekinesis is definitely stronger now.”

“But because of the entity.” Allison stutters with regret. “Maybe we shouldn’t have brought her to the Moon, not because she's a liability, but because she... she just used her ability with _mine_.”

“Don’t worry, Ally-Bally.” Klaus says. He feels better after the green lollipop. “We all make constant mistakes with our powers. Look at me!” he mocks at himself.

“We should have supported Vanya.” Diego agrees. “Where are we going, Luther?” he asks, now him being co-pilot.

“We have to take a briefcase from New York, one of the objects Erin has invented to teleport in time to the past.”

“Won’t that mess up with timelines?” Allison asks, worried. “What about the monsters?”

“With the briefcase we have to take two former workers from Erin’s association. They’ll help us, but... they’re kinda radical.”

“Why?” Diego asks.

“Always prefer to take a gun and fire before thinking and talking things.” Luther says. “Hazel and Cha-Cha. They’re useful, though. We have to take them and some objects more before returning to now, returning to the present, so that they help us figure out how to dismantle Erin. And also, for stopping the monsters. They’re in 1967.”

“Where do we have to go?” Klaus asks.

“Vietnam.”

~~**Please stand by** ~~

The black market from New York usually works with weird but valuable stuff, so they’re not shocked to see they have a briefcase. Luther starts to adjust it according to the instructions Pogo gave them. Once it’s ready, they pack themselves with what’s necessary and gather around an alley. New York is full of people, so they have to do that by night.

“Now.” Luther puts the briefcase on the floor and everyone kneels down to touch it. “We have to be fast. More monsters could come to the present while we’re gone. Are you all ready?” They nod at the same time. “Go!”

They teleport away.

Vietnam looks calmer than they should, but then again, it’s 4 pm and, apparently, both sides are sleeping this time. Luther follows the map and they all end up one mile away from the nearest camp. They hide among some trees and Diego watches around them with his flashlights and binoculars. Luther and Allison are busy with their radio. It’s dangerous for them to just walk around the camps and the forests, so the signals from their radio will attract Hazel and Cha-Cha to their spot. They hope anybody else doesn’t notice that signal. Some minutes pass and nothing happens.

“Klaus.” Diego says, handing him over a talkie and a flashlight. “Make surveillance.”

Klaus rolls his eyes and sighs, tired. He leaves Ben free, so he gets away from the group on his own.

Klaus moves around the forest. In fact, he’s so immersed in the forest that he doesn’t know where he is anymore. He walks and walks, but nothing. The fact that his sense of orientation is up his ass has something to do. He’s about to take the talkie and talk when he hears the familiar click of a gun being activated.

“Put your hands over your head.”

He does so. He turns around slowly and sees an Afro-American man aiming a gun. Klaus frowns, pretending to be offended.

“You don’t look Vietnamese,” the man spits. “you’re not wearing a uniform either. You need to come with me.”

“ _Scheiße_!” Klaus spits. He thinks fast. Maybe he can’t run away right now, but in more time when this man gets distracted. “Okay, I’ll go with you, you have any coke, by the way?”

“Walk!”

He follows the soldier’s instructions and ends up in a small tent that looks like a surveillance spot. There’s a table, some bags, two chairs, and a lamp. There’s another hole at the other side of the tent, in front of the entrance. Also, a closet, which Klaus guesses it has flashlights, talkies, helmets, SOS flares, and more. The soldier leaves him on a chair and still points at him.

“Don’t move.” the soldier hisses. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot you if I see your ass running from here. I’ll be right back.”

The soldier disappears and Klaus stands up. He sits on the table. He calculates a way to get the hell out of there. It’s dark, he can run away, right? Maybe he has to turn off his flashlight for not being spotted, but that won’t let him see much while he’s running.

He’s about to carefully take his talkie, when someone else gets inside the tent on the other side. Klaus looks at him. He’s just a little bit taller than him, in a shape so good that makes him want to whistle, messy blonde hair, blue eyes and soldier outfit...

“... _obviously_. Shit! I was supposed to say that in my thoughts.”

The man tries not to chuckle, but his smile is noticeable.

“Oh, my mate must be guarding.” the newbie says walking inside the tent. “He’s so aggressive, but with good intentions.” The man stretches his muscles. “What are you doing here? What’s your name?”

Klaus pretends that this is a hard situation despite it really is. It’s harder when you have a six-pack staring at you.

“Well, one of your fellas dragged me here because I’m not wearing my uniforms and I don’t look Vietnamese” he huffs. “How racist! And he’s black!”

“You must have met Reed.” the man says, sitting next to him on the table. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Klaus is amused by this man.

“I was on a mission, but my clothes are gone, you know, they were burned.” he lies. “The name’s Klaus, by the way.”

“I’m David.” the man says, shaking his hand. _Scheiße_ , Klaus thinks. He’d never thought he’d be into calloused hands. “Which one is your squad?”

Klaus thinks fast, looking for a quick lie.

“The Hazard Squad. We’re a small one. Yours?”

“The Heaven Squad. Our lieutenant is crazy.”

“I bet.” They chuckle together. “Listen, David, my mission is still on. Reed has to let me go.”

“I... I understand, but you can’t go alone. They’ll take you back here again if they see you alone.”

“Fine!” Klaus pretends to complain, standing up with David. “Care to join me?”

David smiles.

“I will.”

~~**Please stand by** ~~

“... so, that’s how we ended up without our briefcase.” Cha-Cha finishes explaining. It’s been half an hour since they detected some signals... and joined these two pricks. They look different than they thought. “Thanks to this genius.”

“Excuse me?” Hazel asks, offended. “I know I’m a genius.”

“Anyway...” Luther hisses. “We need to go back to the present with you both.” He takes the briefcase. “Because of the monsters. We also-”

Someone shoots right into the briefcase and destroys it. They don’t even have time to think about who it was, so Luther, Allison, Diego and the two new ones start running south. They end up at the edge of the forest and at the beginning of a clearing.

“What do we do now?” Diego screams and he has to cover his ears.

They see some soldiers preparing their guns, thinking they’re the enemy, so the two idiots start preparing their guns. One of the lieutenants is seen as he prepares a bazooka and fires right at them. Allison is about to make it deviate, but Klaus arrives running in front of them and his blue hands make the shot explode in the middle of the clearing. The soldiers run away. Diego grabs his brother and they return behind the bushes.

“Where the hell have you been, idiot?” Diego spits.

“Sorry! I got distracted.” Klaus says, standing up and going to the forest... and gets close with a man. Luther is about to explode out of disbelief. “Guys! This is my friend Dav-”

“What the hell are you doing?” Luther hisses. “Why did you bring him here?”

“I was dragged by a soldier and I couldn’t leave their tent alone! David helped me.” Klaus hisses back and looks at David, who looks frowning and in shock. Oh, right. He forgot they’re all in a timeline where superpowers weren’t seen as much. Klaus taps his shoulder. “Oh, yeah, the blue hands and all...”

“I...” David mutters, kneeling down next to his friend on the grass. Klaus’ smile soothes him. “Okay. I’ll ask later.”

“Aw, you’re _so_ sweet.”

“Hello?” Diego interrupts, waving a hand in front of them. The two friends shake their heads at the same time. Diego tilts his heads briefly. Sometimes, chemistry is given between two people immediately. “We’re in the middle of this shit! We don’t know how get the hell out of here-”

There are more shots. Klaus stops the bullets with a shield of his powers, but one of them lands in Luther’s leg. Hazel and Cha-Cha keep firing until they end up on a hill with Luther’s harmed body.

“Shit...” he hisses, sweating and moving his head on the grass. Allison kneels down right next to him and takes his hands with tenderness. “This hurts.”

Allison takes off a piece of her jacket with her power and makes a tourniquet. It’s not a good idea using her powers to heal any wounds unless is lethal.

“I know, sweetie, hang on.”

Klaus tries to stand in front of them and he gets to deviate the bullets for a while, until an entire squad gets close with a gatling gun recently charged. However, a small shape under the shadows lands one mile away on the prairie and explodes the machine with a simple grenade. The shape disappears... teleporting away.

“What...?”

Klaus murmurs a _huh_ when he knows who the shape is. He’s somehow the fastest one in figuring things out.

They don’t know where the person is right now, but they all look around and see as the soldiers keep screaming, like if someone was killing them with no mercy. Then, there’s silence. Complete darkness and silence. They’re uneasy about it. They don’t like it.

“Guys.”

They turn around and startle when they see... _kid_ Five next to them, with his face covered in blood and his simple suit not even messed up a little. They keep silence for a while in disbelief. Five... he’s like not even surprised of that situation. It makes some of them uncomfortable.

“Five?” Allison screams and she immediately covers her mouth.

“No time.” Five hisses, getting close to Luther’s harmed body and looking at it. “We have to return. Go back to the present.”

~~**Please stand by** ~~

They end up back in the present. With a former worker of Erin that has a lot of beard, another former worker that can’t stop combing her hair, a soldier that wasn’t supposed to be with them and _kid_ Five. What a really weird group.

What the hell is going on?

“Obviously.” Five spits, walking from side to side of the coffee table. The others still don’t understand anything. They hadn’t felt like this since they’re childhood missions. “I went to the future. And returned. Easy.” He shrugs. The only one who’s not surprised is Klaus. “The apocalypse is coming, by the way.”

The others open their mouths, except Klaus, who’s attentive to his new friend, making sure he’s not too dizzy for travelling in time for the first time. He puts a small bag with ice on his forehead. David is feeling dizzy.

“What’s it?” Klaus asks.

“I feel dizzy.” David responds, frowning. He stands up and goes to the kitchen to clear his mind. His friend follows him close and tilts his head. “Like I’m in a hangover.”

“Maybe you’re hungry.” Klaus says walking to the fridge and searching an apple. He takes one and throws it to David, who takes it. “An apple.”

“You don’t want one?” David says, taking a bite.

“Nah.” Klaus shrugs, resting his back against the fridge, watching how his friend’s hard jawline bites the fruit. He’s mesmerized by the man. They’ve been talking for some hours now, as Five tries to explain everything to the family, but he feels a connection with David, like if they were supposed to meet somehow. “Not a food person.”

David tilts his head.

“Not a _food_ person?” he frowns. “Last I checked, a human needs to eat something to live.” Klaus chuckles for his words. “But... you’re an addict, right?”

Klaus is surprised.

“How do you know that?”

“I have a good instinct.” David says after another bite of his fruit and raises his eyebrows. “And... not to offend, but it’s kind of evident, I guess?”

Klaus lifts an eyebrow.

“How so?”

“I don’t know.” David says around a chuckle. “I guess, the eyebags. Your skinny knees, your waist. The way you sniff.”

“I’m predictable?”

David shakes his head.

“Not at all.”

Klaus feels something in his chest too. He doesn’t know what it is.

Minutes later, after they’ve gotten to know each other (the little details, the mannerism), they reunite with the others in the major living room. Luther looks upset and Diego is on the defensive, pointing at Five.

“No way! That’s not possible!”

“That’s how it happened!” Five screams back. “Erin can’t be saved!”

“There has to be another way.” Allison insists. “I mean... We’re talking about killing a person.”

“We’ve already killed dozens of people in our pasts, what difference does it make one more?” Five throws. He’s right. “Besides, if we don’t kill her, the monsters will destroy everything. The end of the omniverse, like I said some hours ago. Look, I’ve seen that Erin is inventing another machine to go back in time.”

“Why?” Diego spits. “She has powers to time-travel and that white energy from the machine.”

“Yeah, about that...” Cha-Cha interrupts, scratching her head. “Erin has more powers. She doesn’t time travel itself with powers, but invents machines that are powered with her energy. Energy which she can _pass_ to another person, so that the monsters don’t find her so easy and she can go back in time, both things she wants to do. Avoid the monsters and time-travel.”

“Which person would she want to pass her powers to to get rid of them?” Diego asks.

“A random one without previous powers for us to be distracted.” Five guesses. “Now we have to find her before she passes her powers to an innocent person because that means we would have to kill that person too.”

Allison frowns and faces the wall. Luther hugs her shoulder.

“So...” Diego looks at his _small_ brother. “What would be the plan now?”

Five growls at what’s coming. He didn’t want to get to this part, but he needs to.

“We have to find Erin and kill her... after our dear sister wakes her goddamn powers up.”

~~**Please stand by** ~~

Vanya feels uncomfortable with all of those wires around her body: two on each arm, three on each leg, five on her nape, and ten on her back. It hurt so much when Mom pressed the button and all of those wires connected to her body. It felt like a lot of vaccines, but she pushed through it.

She’s been in the analyzer for one week around. It’s in a completely light room very similar to a room for an MRI, including the glass dividing the analyzer and the computers where Pogo is controlling her. The difference is that the tube doesn’t have a ceiling, it’s just the half of the tube. She’s naked except for her underwear and her bra, so she feels very vulnerable.

Right now, all of her family (and two more people; it turns out that Klaus has brought a friend in whatever missions they didn’t include her again) is watching her behind the glass. They’re looking at a screen that describes her energy.

“Look.” Pogo insists again. He scratches his chin and thinks. “Her energy levels, especially in her chest, is actually really high. Higher than Klaus’ even... and _he_ stopped the Moon from crashing once in a mission...” He clicks some buttons. “However... That energy doesn’t activate. It doesn’t get out of her on her will.”

“Why?” Luther asks.

“The monster she absorbed weeks ago...” he thinks more. “It’s like fighting against her. The monster wants to rage on, but she’s not letting it to.”

Allison stays a little bit open-mouthed. She’s saving them.

“Wow...” she mutters. “What... What can we do?”

”Wait some more days.” Pogo insists. “I’ll try to analyze deep into her brain. Her brain is actually connected to that monster too.”

~~**Please stand by** ~~

They’re all eating around the dinner two days after. Luther and Allison are trying to have a normal conversation. Klaus and David are talking too but in their element. They’re relatively calm right now. They’ve been staying in their old house lasts weeks because it was more comfortable not going from their usual houses to the Academy and to the missions again. It’s better if they all stay here until they find Erin, their _new_ aunt. Diego is about to drink from his glass of water when the liquid shakes inside. He looks to the ceiling in case he feels something else. Despite the conversation with his new friend, Klaus looks up too and, then, Five frowns and stands up because of the noises on the ceiling. But they don’t know it’s not from any of the levels above so, it’s late when they hear Pogo screaming... before he suddenly stops.

They stand up quickly and run.

~~**Please stand by** ~~

“Pogo...” Vanya says with hoarse voice. Pogo tightens his lips and bows his head. It’s been really hard for her and he knows that. He also knows that Reginald’s way of... raising his kids haven’t even been close to be the right way. The thing is that he considers Vanya like her kid. What is he doing? “Pogo...”

He clicks the button for her to listen to him.

“Yeah? Do you need anything?”

“I want...” she coughs. The food she’s been given these last days “Can I play with my violin?”

Pogo sighs.

“Are you sure?”

She sobs without tears.

“Yeah.”

She literally has no entertainment here, so Pogo stops pressing the button, stands up and leaves. It doesn’t take long before he comes back with the case of her violin. He opens the door, walks to the half of the tube and opens the case.

“Is it tuned already?” She nods. Pogo takes the violin out, also the bow, and leaves them on her chest. She touches the objects with tenderness. He comes back to the chair behind the glass and presses the button once more. “Everything okay?”

She doesn’t answer. She takes a deep breath, puts the objects into the right position and starts playing for a while. It doesn’t take long before Pogo’s attention is drawn into the screen. The yellow color indicating the monster moves... it moves with Vanya’s energy with her telekinesis. Then, he doesn’t realize when most of the object at the other side of the glass with her white energy. The screen, showing her energies, are so saturated that it short-circuits. He stands up. He has no other way. He regretfully presses the red button in the middle of the control panel.

Vanya doesn’t scream. She stays still, _completely_ still, taking short breaths while she grabs onto her violin desperately. Pogo realizes that her pain levels are on risk. She’s so much in pain that she has to stay still, that’s why she can’t scream... until, she starts shivering, but not out of pain or out of fear... it’s out of anger. Now that her telekinesis and the monster are joined, there’s nothing that can stop them. There’s nothing that can stop the _three_ of them.

“Why...?” she growls. Vanya tightens her teeth and, despite the glass that divides them is dark, Pogo can see the hatred in her white eyes. “Why did you do that?”

Pogo swallows and throws his cane on the floor.

“I... I didn’t know what else to do...”

She takes a deep breath, still with the position of playing her instrument.

“Neither do I.” she hisses. “Not anymore.”

Vanya sits up abruptly and, when she puts her bow on the violin right pointing at him through the window, Pogo screams loudly. Then, she finishes the movement and the energy goes through his head.

All of her senses are numb, all of her limbs are tingling with new strength. She doesn’t care about anything anymore. Before her family comes, she gets off of the tube, walks to the crate with clothes and puts on the first thing she sees; it’s white, perfect for her moment.

She knows what to do.

Next stop, Erin.

She looks at Pogo’s corpse.

“Well, that’s a start.”

~~**Please stand by** ~~

The room is completely dark when they enter. They don’t know who, but someone turns on a flashlight. The screen has short-circuited. Luther has the courage open the (already) door next to the glass and they’re shocked. The flashlight points at the tube. Vanya’s not there. Where would she...?

Allison screams holding onto Luther’s arm. Five, who turned out to turn on his flashlights, wrinkles his nose when he points at the floor. Pogo is on the floor with blood all over his body and with a whole on his head. It’s like if it were shot by a powerful bullet.

“I knew it.” Five growls shaking his head.

~~**Please stand by** ~~

Vanya has been trying to get herself under control, but it’s terribly hard when her own soul screams for freedom, to just let her power go. Well, she let them go one week ago, but it was for killing someone. The bad thing is that it was Pogo, the closest thing she had as a true father. The good thing is that she has practice already; killing Erin won’t be that hard now. It’s been around one month since she left the Academy. She didn’t want to look back, so she went to Glasgow, like doing a temporary retirement from everything until she found Erin.

It didn’t work. As soon as she landed in Scotland, an interdimensional monster tried to pursue her. However, once her white stream touched one of the cosmic tentacles, there was an explosion. Her family must be freaking out and already heading to Scotland. However, they don’t have Pogo’s help this time.

She’s willing to talk to them as soon as they apologize truly instead of just feeling hatred or fear or pity towards her. Diego has been trying to make contact, but she has rejected his calls to her small apartment. Allison has been trying to call her too. As neither of them want to draw their attention to the possible end of the world Five won’t stop talking about, they talk about random things and it feels nice having a sister for the first time. Allison just hopes her sister doesn’t bump into Erin because she knows Vanya won’t hold back now that she has activated her powers for real.

She’s having breakfast alone. Then, she says hello to one of the nicest neighbors she has and goes to the plaza of the capital with the case of her instrument. She reads for one hour one of her favorite books. It’s around midday when she keeps her book and takes out her violin instead. Her soul is not burning, so that means the monster doesn’t want to come out.

She closes her eyes once she starts playing. She feels the sound of the wind, the sound of the fountain, a couple talking and walking close to her. She plays for a while, until she feels something not so nice. She stops playing and her eyes open. She keeps the violin inside quickly and hides behind the bench, crouching, once three interdimensional entities come out in the middle of the sky. Despite it’s midday, it’s dark because of their presence. They look furious, like they’re not even close to find the energy resource from the machine. Vanya doesn’t understand why.

However, there’s a van that hurries up on the road on the left of the park and the monsters pursue it, floating in the air and _deforming_ it. Vanya runs towards them, not being naive this time. _Erin_.

She ends up hiding behind a corner when the three monsters are tearing the truck apart, killing the people inside easily. However, an agent that looks like a cop (but is not) and a tall, blonde woman with long hair run out of their vehicle and start to run away. If the monsters kill her, it’ll be the end. If Vanya does it first, she’ll save the world. She’s confused, especially when Erin uses her own energy to _touch_ her stomach and her powers ascend to the sky somewhere else like lightning (Vanya doesn’t know where those powers are going), especially when the entities look at Erin and _seem_ to not have found the source of energy when Erin is right there. It could be because Erin has somehow get rid of her powers. Crap. Now she’ll have to kill that poor innocent. Vanya’s about to run to them, but someone(s) appear in a portal and start attacking the entities. She perfectly knows who are them, so she puffs and decides to fight the kind of monsters that she absorbed. Vanya, still behind the corner, takes out her violin and starts playing again. After a while, her own energy spreads towards the monsters and draws their attention. On the other side, Allison notices they’re going to attack their sister instead. She acts with impulsivity.

“Vanya!”

Klaus keeps them right in their places with his ability while his sister runs to the corner she his other sister is. The rest of the men are threatening the agent and Erin to stay in their places because they cornered them before they left. They don’t even realize that the monsters have deformed the sky so much that it’s like in the middle of the night. Allison takes Vanya’s hand and comes back with them. Vanya looks angry at being interrupted. If she has an entire entity inside her, it should have been enough.

“I was-”

Allison hugs her and Vanya doesn’t know how to react. There, in the middle of the fight, with Luther trying to keep all of them alive and Five teleporting civilians away, Vanya feels a pang in her chest.

Is this comfort?

All of their lives thinking they’re the worst family in the world. Just because their father was, that doesn’t mean they are. Then again, mistakes are done by all of them all over again and there’s always going to be anger towards the others inside all of them. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t love each other.

“It’s okay...” Allison says, stroking her cheek. Vanya grinds her teeth. They didn’t know how much they have missed each other until now. Vanya hugs her back. Comfort feels good. She could get used to it. “It’s okay... We’re here for you. Okay? You’re not alone now...”

Vanya nods when she looks at Allison’s eyes.

They don’t have much time, though. Klaus gets to retain the monster until they free themselves and _look_ at the group. Seven superpowered siblings, two idiots with ridiculous masks firing and a normal man with a new energy source inside. They’re about to reach that man, but Klaus gets in the middle and forces them to stay away for a while.

Vanya gets to free herself from her sister’s grip and take her violin again. Her white wave sends away everyone around her.

The entities look at the group. A big male trying to recover from the hit as fast as he can. A blond male with an eyepatch trying to move as well, but he has a broken bone in his shoulder. A ginger male crawling on the floor, holding onto the male that has Erin’s powers now; they look lovers. Two people with masks gathering their weapons. A small male whose head won't react because he has landed on a truck, fifty yards away. And finally, the female with the yellow dying star inside her, still playing the violin and letting loose her energy. They’re about to attack her when they see another female, trying to crawl on the floor too and trying to reach her sister. They see that her pity for her sister was fake, not real, but it’s not like that anymore.

They know what to do.

All of their tentacles go around Vanya as nothing. The group doesn’t know why, until their energies wrap Allison with a deadly grip and drag her inside _them_ after burning her body in front of everyone quickly. Vanya feels that inside her and stops playing, falling to the floor after screaming.

The entities disappear so fast that it’s confusing.

_**"THE NEXT RIGHT THING", Kristen Bell** _

_But you've gone to a place i cannot find_

_This grief has a gravity_

_It pulls me down_

~~**Please stand by** ~~

Vanya faces the wall of her previous bedroom, looking at nothing, thinking about everything; her eyes are empty, her body is numb even after sleeping an entire week and her eyes are red. She doesn’t move for an hour and it’s been an hour since the Sun set in the sky. Her breathe is slow, but constant.

Someone knocks the door several times and she has the courage to swallow down her dry throat and say something out loud.

“Get out, Mom.”

“It’s Diego.”

“Oh.” she murmurs. “Get out, Diego.”

“No.” he says with pity, but sweetness all at the same time. He doesn’t admit it out loud, but he’s sweet in his own way. Whenever he wants to. “It’s our sister’s funeral. You haven’t told Mom if you’ll come.”

“Why come?”

Diego keeps quiet for some seconds.

“Listen, Vanya... We’re not _Allison_ , any of us, but I’m sure she’d probably say something like not letting hatred consume you. You’re going through a lot and I get it. We all do, despite what you think. Don’t let it consume you, please.” Vanya frowns. How is she not going to let it consume her when she has an entity inside her screaming? “The funeral is tomorrow. I’ll tell Mom you’ll come.”

Vanya’s attention is drawn to that now.

“Why come?” she spits again. It hurts.

“Because she was your goddamn sister.” he protests scratching his eyepatch. “And, like ir or not, she’d want you to go to her funeral despite you hate it.”

She doesn’t hate it. She just doesn’t want to live with the idea that her sister is gone.

~~**Please stand by** ~~

It’s been around a day since Allison died and her siblings have been trying to recover too. Luther is a total mess, but he’s doing okay as long as he has something to distract himself. Diego has messed up with mafias over tonight and having a weird but good friendship with Hazel and Cha-Cha. Klaus has sneaked into his own room to make _things_ with David, but the others ignore them completely, even when they lock his door and hear the mattress dip... several times over the night. Five is trying to figure out and calculate the outcomes of all of this mess. And Ben, as always, is trying to keep his family together before they fall apart.

Vanya is dressed with a dark latex suit, elegant and slim, before she dresses with pants and jackets, elegant enough for a funeral.

She looks at herself in the mirror.

She knows what to do... but she doesn’t have the courage to do it.

The siblings reunite in the kitchen. David is in the common bathroom. Mom is trying to attend them silently. Vanya’s preparing her simple make up in the restroom close to the kitchen, watching as everyone discusses Erin.

“So, where did her powers go?” Diego protests. Him not knowing things is unnerving. Now that Allison is gone, the discussions tend to evolve into arguments more.

“No idea.” Five huffs. “But she got rid of them. We have to kill the person that has her powers now before the monsters find that citizen. And we also have to kill Erin before she goes back in time.”

“Deal.” Hazel says. “Erin is in the city, trying to acquire info about her brother before turning back in time to change events. Now...” He sighs. “We have to kill a citizen and we don’t know who it is.”

They keep quiet.

“Erin just got rid of her powers before the monsters killed her in Edinburgh.” Cha-Cha reminds, cleaning one of her favorite weapons. “Then she got to run away after Vanya collapsed with Allison’s death. I wonder if she knows what person she gave her ability, but I think she knows.”

“It has to be something close to us.” Luther figures out. “Someone close to us, not any of us because we have already powers, but someone close to make us fight and be distracted when we try to go for Erin.” Klaus doesn’t like where this is going. “Someone for us to be separated, even more. And someone who was also close to us in what happened in Edinburgh.”

Everyone looks at David with a shocked realization when he goes downstairs and enters the kitchen. He doesn’t know what’s happening, especially when Klaus puts himself in front of him before Luther takes more steps forward.

“No.” Klaus shakes his head in denial. “No, no, no, no way.”

“It could be.” Diego agrees. “It could be him.”

“Don’t you _fucking_ dare.” Klaus hisses, putting a hand between him and the others. “No. We don’t even know-”

“Klaus.” Mom says with pity, stealing Diego’s words. Klaus frowns and bows his head. David knows where the conversation is going. He has been involved in too much shit the last few months and being involved with Klaus has had its consequences. As long as he’s with Klaus... whatever it takes. “We have to analyze him. To check out if he has misses Hargreeves powers.”

Klaus frowns and takes David’s hand. His eyes are shivering out of fear.

“I’ll be right there. Whatever it takes.”

~~**Please stand by** ~~

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

Even if the wires connected to his body don’t hurt, Klaus squeezes his hand harder sitting on a chair right next to David’s tube while Mom is taking care of the analysis (because Pogo is not there). They take long a quarter of an hour and when they’re finished, the four of them look at the screen. All of David’s body is shining with white heat.

Crap.

Despite the results, Klaus rests his forehead on David’s and sighs.

“It’s okay.” he mutters into his ear. Mom ets out of the room, perhaps to warn the rest... and decide his destiny. It sounds awful. He doesn’t deserve this. “It’s gonna... it’s gonna be okay.”

The man on the tube shakes his head, chuckling his sadness.

“Klaus...”

“ _Ja_?”

“I knew what I was getting into when I followed you.” David says, stroking Klaus’ hair in his position. It would be a very tender moment if they weren’t here. “Well, I didn’t know what exactly, I just followed you because you were so different from what I had been bumping into and my life was very monotonous. I mean, your forearms are blue and you have powers and all that jazz.” Klaus doesn’t say anything. Diego’s loud voice is heard at the other side of the door, arguing with the rest, all of them being even more apart. “But what will be, will be. The world is ending soon, remember?”

“Yeah... I... I wanted to say that I l-” Klaus stands up quickly when the door opens. David sits on the tube and starts taking off his wires. “What?”

“He has Erin’s powers.” Diego tries to say carefully. His brother clenches his fists. “The others are going for Erin. Hazel and Cha-Cha are trying to locate her. We’re eliminating her.”

“But not him.” Klaus talks about the man behind him. “Not _him_.”

“The world is ending.” Diego tries to insists. It’s not fair, his delicate side is only with Vanya. “We’re talking about the whole universe against one man.”

“Isn’t there any other way?” Klaus hisses in silence.

“We've been trying to search for a way.” Diego says with pity in his eyes. “But there isn’t. We have to eliminate David, the end is coming soon.”

“Then I’m gonna fight until the end.”

Klaus hits both of his fists together and his blue forearms create a blue shield before expanding it, taking David’s hand and escaping through the window.

~~**Please stand by** ~~

Vanya hears a noise outside the restroom and tries to open the door. It’s somehow locked. She knocks with strength several minutes. Nobody will answer. She screams while punching the door and kneels to the ground. The noise from the walls are unbearable. She covers her ears.

“MOM!”

After a while, she hears some footsteps and her mother kneeling at the other side of the door. Vanya’s tears are already falling to the floor and her breath is stuttering.

“Vanya...”

Her voice is soothing like always, but something has changed. She doesn’t know what or why.

“Mom...” she sobs loudly. “Where are my brothers...? Get me out of here...”

She curls up on the floor and buries her face in her knees.

“Klaus escaped with David.” Mom says with pity. She keeps silence. “David has Erin’s powers now.” Oh. That twists things a bit. Vanya would have to kill him now, but she doesn’t have her violin to get out of here. “The others went for them... and Luther locked this door and stole my key.”

Vanya frowns while tears are getting out still.

“Without me...?” she hisses. Mom hums as in a statement. Vanya growls, feeling the monster’s fury inside her chest; it’s her fury. “Again...? Like in all of my life?” Mom keeps quiet again. “I’m...” Vanya covers her ears and tightens her eyelids once more when she feels her claustrophobia attacking all over again. “I’m scared...” She swallows. “I... Mom, I’m _scared_. I... I know what I have to do... but I’m scared of the future...”

Mom knows the future. Reginald told her so.

“I’m going for your violin.”

Vanya hears that and feels a pang in her chest. Despite that, she innerly thanks her Mom.

In a matter of minutes, her mom makes the violin get to the grating on the ceiling of the restroom. Vanya has to un-curl up from the floor, without wanting to, stands up with fire in her chest and take the violin. She plays for some seconds and the door is flown like a leaf. She gets out and Mom is standing up at some yards away. She looks uncertain.

“Luther didn’t lock you up.” Mom hisses with pain and tears in her sad eyes. “Well, he did. But...”

“... it was _your_ idea.” Vanya finishes with hatred. Mom doesn’t even have to nod. “I already told you that I know what I have to do.”

Mom’s eyes shiver, but not out of fear. She’d never distrust from Vanya. She knows Vanya will do whatever it takes in her future. She will do great things.

“Then, do it.”

Vanya passes her bow over her violin and the light goes through Mom’s heart.

It hurts like hell. That feeds fire to her chest.

~~**Please stand by** ~~

Vanya somehow gets to locate the monsters at the plaza before the others do because they were busy looking for Klaus for a while. They’re stressed when they see the sky darker. Erin’s going to be there, about to turn back in time, which means the monsters will be there, which means Vanya will be too. They don’t know that their sister is there.

Once they’re there, some agents are shooting at the three monsters unsuccessfully, so they try to do that too. It’s a spectacle of blinding lights, especially when there’s a sound of a violin that shoots to the monsters. Vanya appears around a corner and the entities try to fight back for a while. They’re all tired and they don’t realize they’ve been fighting for almost two hours.

Five takes advantage. He hides behind a column and grabs one of his best knives. He blows over it and teleports behind the parked van near the plaza after he finds the vehicle.

“... but the three monsters!”

“My father made all of this mess!” Erin’s voice sounds inside, talking to one of her minions. A click sounds. Must be the machine. Five hisses, on edge. “Before dying, he was hiding this machine to turn back in time with no problem. We have to try it, so that I can save my mother.”

“Are you sure that machine doesn’t do something else?”

“We don’t know that.” Erin admits.

Five takes a deep breath and teleports inside. The agent is quick to react, but Five is quicker to nail his knife on Erin’s neck and kill her. She ends up bleeding on the floor of the vehicle. That was too easy, so it’s even easier to throw his knife to the other agent. He looks at the machine and stays inside, trying to figure out a safe way to deactivate it. Even working in the Commission, he doesn’t understand these things. It’s new.

The others are trying to fight, but it’s hard. Nevertheless, the three monsters are one hundred percent focused on Vanya. It’s a fair battle between the three of them and one within her. Klaus and David arrive at the plaza and they hide behind a bench. Klaus tries to help for a while and David gets to defend himself with some guns from Hazel, but he has to come back with him. His mind is chaos, but David takes his hand and makes him focus. They look at each other for some long seconds in the middle of the mess.

“Klaus.” David says, serious. Their bodies shiver together like the first time they met, but not out of amusement this time. Klaus is in pure denial. “Klaus...”

Klaus swallows deep and shivers again when David strokes his hair, dipping his fingers.

“No...”

David keeps caressing him.

“Klaus...” They stay still behind the bench with the battle noises in the background. “Klaus. This is the end.”

Klaus grinds his teeth and feels a pang in his chest. Why? Why is life always like this?

“No...”

David strokes his cheek when his eyes get teary. One person can’t be saved against the entire multiverse. They need to do this.

“Yes. The world is ending.” He kisses his lips briefly and David takes out another gun. Klaus takes it after some minutes, but he’s shivering everywhere. His chest hurts so much and his knees get cold on the floor. It’s not valid if the host of Erin’s powers kill itself. They figured it out in Pogo’s notes. “ _You_ can do this.”

Klaus bows his head.

“It’s _so_ not fair...”

David makes him look back at him with a finger under his chin.

“I know. I know it’s not fair. But it’s how it is.”

Klaus closes his eyes when he puts his fingers on the trigger.

“I’m sorry.” he swallows.

“Nothing to worry about.” David tries to reassure. “This is how things are. I’ll always be there for you, you know that right?” Klaus can’t even talk anymore. “Farewell, Klaus. See you soon.”

Klaus knows what he’s talking about. And that kills him a little bit. He can’t die and he’d have to stop taking drugs to conjure him.

It’s going to be tough, _really_ tough.

“Farewell, Dave.”

He puts the hand right on his temple. And fires.

~~**Please stand by** ~~

Five can’t decipher how the machine works. He doesn’t startle when he hears a caliber shot, but he’s surprised. It could have been Diego, but...

Something stronger sounds. He takes the machine in his hands because it would be naive to leave it alone inside the van. Better in his hands than alone. The others are dragging over the floor, trying to fight against the space deformations the monsters are causing. Vanya’s body is all white; hair, suit, instrument, all raging. Everyone can see as the dying star inside her starts shining yellow, in her chest, and the monster inside her unfolds its yellow tentacles, trying to get them closer to the other monsters. Five frowns and remembers the conversation from the van.

He jumped into the future and saw there wasn’t anybody on Earth expect the workers from the Commission. He needed to know what made all of them fail in this same battle and he has figured out; it was the fact that when they killed Erin and destroyed the machine, it exploded and the monsters were so furious again that they put the entire world on fire in a matter of seconds. Now, thanks to the conversation from the van, he knew that the world wasn’t going to end.

However, the machine still existed and they didn’t know what it was created for. These kind of machines work with an amount of energy and there were three cosmic entities in all of their glory, four including Vanya’s. Five also remembers that Erin’s father wanted to create more parallel multiverses.

Crap.

Five tries to get away, running, but the yellow tentacles touch the other monsters’ and it generates a humongous amount of energy that is fed to the machine, which creates an explosion that expands around the entire Earth... and around the entire multiverse.

_**"THIS IS THE END", The Doors** _

_This is the end, my only friend, the end_

_Of our elaborate plans, the end_

_Of everything that stands, the end_

. . .

~~**Please stand by** ~~

Vanya opens her eyes and all she can see is darkness. Then, she realizes it must be around midnight. There was a lot of light before, but not anymore at least. She sits up after recovering from the hit in her head and touches her head. It hurts.

She looks all around her. The entities are gone. Her siblings are gone. There’s a van at the other side of the plaza, with its door open. There’s nobody inside. There’s a machine in a good state with one of its lights on, like if it had been recently used, in the middle of the plaza, as if someone had carried it to that spot. Vanya stands up slowly and walks towards it with the same pace. She strokes her hurt head as she kneels and shivers when she remembers that Erin’s father wanted to create more multiverses. This is the fucking machine.

Vanya stands up scared and looks around her again.

“Hello!?”

She looks at her violin and the bow, like if they hadn’t been touched or flinched with anything from the fight. She looks at the corpse of the man with a shot on his head and blood all over him. She has a gag reflex when she realizes it’s David. Klaus isn’t anywhere.

She walks towards the empty streets. Everyone’s missing, like if they’re gone, like if they’re dead. Except her. Why is she not dead?

The monsters don’t die. And she has a monster inside her, so she can’t die either.

This can’t be happening.

She crawls on the floor, in the middle of the road, but she knows no vehicle is coming. The monsters can whisper into their hosts, so the entity inside her is confirming to her what she’s terrified of even thinking _._

 _You’re alone. You’re totally alone. The machine has to_ **_take_ ** _life all around this multiverse to create more Big Bangs all around the omniverse. But it’s okay. Now other multiverses exist thanks to you._

Vanya lies in the middle of the road and screams. This time, there’s no monster raging inside. There’s no hatred towards her own traumas or her siblings. There’s solely and purely sorrow caused by the realization that she has helped create infinite multiverses all across the omniverse... with a great cost.

~~**Please stand by** ~~

**~~~**

**.**

**.**

**.**

Five has never been a tearful person. He has always stood tough times with a strong soul, despite everything screaming to him to break down when he was turned into an assassin, forced to kill innocent people. Even though, even after seeing what he has just seen on the interdimensional TV, his eyes only get teary. But he knows his siblings. Allison’s and Klaus’ are, indeed, wet with thick tears. Luther has covered his face with his big hands out of disbelief. Diego and Ben stare, in denial, at the TV, now with no signal. Bopha sobs, being as she es. Dave closes his eyes, with some tears too. Five stares at the TV and, just then, he realizes his hands are exaggeratedly trembling.

Some minutes pass, but they don’t dare to take a step forward to even turn off the noisy TV. Instead, they remain kneeling on the floor. It doesn’t help that it’s almost 5 am in Prime Earth and 4 am in Second Earth, so they've literally run out of sleep.

Some things never change. Klaus is the first one to break silence with a sob.

“God...”

And there’s silence again. Bopha has to rest her head against Allison’s and they sob together. Five feels his chest constrict, so he takes a deep breath and, after some more minutes, he slowly moves until he’s crouching.

“Guys.” he tries to say, but it comes really dry. He swallows deep. This was tougher than he expected. He wants nothing more than screaming, buggering everything off, coming back to reality, taking Trinity in her hands and cuddling her forever. “Guys...” he mutters. He can’t stand it anymore, so he quickly takes out the tape and the TV turns off. There’s pure silence. “Guys. We have to leave this room.”

Ten minutes pass until they’re able to stand up slowly, still sobbing, hugging each other, taking the other’s shoulder to get closer. Five takes a deep breath and teleports them outside.

**~~~**

They still look like shit even when they go to the breaks zone and drink more coffee and eat more pastries. Dave has to get a little bit away with Klaus for Klaus to break down in peace. Then, they come back and gather around the table. They’re a little bit lost, sitting and standing up because they’re _exhausted_ , but they have just watched something horrible.

It’s been almost an hour since they left that room. The tape lasted around two hours. If it was like a movie, it was the worse one they’ve seen in their entire lives and Five got to see a lot of them when he was alone in the future and found old tapes under the ashes.

“Guys?”

Trinity’s voice sounds around the closest levels, so the ones who were sitting stand up once more. Five practically jumps off his seat and walks fast to the intermediate level of the stairs. The others get close, trying to search for her. Bopha is the first one to look at her and draws their attention. Trinity finishes going upstairs to the wide intermediate level where they are and they keep silence, staring at her. She walks calmly but stops when she notices their glances. She lifts an eyebrow. _As if nothing happened_ , they all think.

Worst birthday ever.

Trinity tilts her head and stays at ten yards away, close to a wooden column.

“What’s going on?” she slowly asks. “Did somebody die?”

“Well, yeah.” Klaus spits.

Trinity shivers but tries to keep it together. She doesn’t like where this is coming.

“Five...” Trinity calls softly. Five feels the pang in the chest disappear only to be replaced by... something he doesn’t want to admit, something that tells him to stay close to her because it’s what she deserves after everything she’s been through. It’s not out of pity, it’s out of… something else. “What is it?” He doesn’t answer immediately. “Tell me the truth. You’ve asked me to be honest with you all and I’ve done that.”

“Not with everything.” Klaus speaks. “Zero Earth?”

Trinity stays stunned, a bit open-mouthed, and shivers again when she notices about the tape Luther has in his hand. This can’t be happening...

“No...” she mutters in denial, taking a step back, and she bumps into the column behind, which makes her feel more trapped. She feels her limbs tingle and her chest constrict. “No...” Five fills himself with courage before taking steps forward, which makes Trinity panic. She grinds her teeth, reliving all of the memories. “No!”

She moves both of her arms in front of her and a pure, white wave expands so that Five trips over. Indeed, he falls to the floor, so his group gets close and Luther makes him stand up. They look up again and Trinity’s gone. She must have run away. Five gets rid of Luther’s grip and teleports. The others go downstairs.

After doing it several times, Five teleports right in the entrance hall and grabs Trinity’s arm with strength. She glances at him; not frowning, not angry, but more scared than he has seen in the eight months he has known her. Trinity shakes her body, hearing the close footsteps.

“Let me go!”

“NO!” Five screams back and he has to teleport and grab her hand again for cornering her against the closest column of the door. She stays frozen in place, enduring Five’s grip even if it doesn’t hurt her. She tries to get away, but Five takes her chin. “No!” But, despite not wanting to, she stays. The others appear in the stairs and get close, but not too much. Trinity gives up after a while and Five moves his hand away from her chin; instead placing it on her shoulder. They look at each other. Five wants to sob tearlessly (but as strong as if with someone who’s usually tearful) when he sees her thick tears rolling down her cheeks, but he makes it through. He endures for her... because it’s what she needs the most. “Hey...” Five strokes her arm, which causes more shivers and more tears. “Hey... I’m here. Okay?” Trinity shakes her head and sobs, trying to make it as quiet as possible, even if she knows deep down that even the others can hear it. “I’m here. For you.” She swallows deep and takes a deep breath, so does Five. “Tri. You have to tell us what happened.”

Trinity breaks down more. Klaus feels a pit in his stomach when he thinks that if he used to hang on a thread, right now, Trinity’s falling off in an abyss after her thread has broken.

Trinity looks back at Five and takes the first step.

“You...” she stutters. Five gives her the time she needs. “Why ask? You’ve seen it.”

“But... what about what happened after?” Five asks carefully. She grinds her teeth. Letting tears free feels just a _little_ bit better. Klaus knows that.

“Well... After... After the decimation, I tried... I tried to take a jet and go all around the world to check it out... and there wasn’t _anybody_.” she spits. “Anybody.”

“Tri-”

“And then... I took a spaceship that I couldn’t even handle on my own...” she coughs. She remembers even the little notes Pogo had about how to pilot a spaceship alone. “... and visited Mars, Titan, Enceladus... there was life on them too. _Was_.”

Five closes his eyes and huffs.

“God...” he can’t help but mutter. He looks back at her eyes. She’s more than bitter, but like Klaus had told them, letting tears free feels... _better_? “I mean... How do you know that?”

“The screens from the spaceship told so.” she mumbles. Five cleans her more recent tears, but more come out. At least, they’re not as thick as the first ones. “And the decimation happened all over my multiverse, so... everyone except me? Gone.”

More tears appear, so Five cleans them with no fear that the sleeves get dirty.

“Then, what?” he mutters.

“Then, I... I just stayed there, shivering, alone, years, decades, until I was fifty two and despite I was afraid of this thing, I took the machine in case I could do something with it... and it teleported me to Prime Earth.”

Everything is connected. That makes sense.

“Which explains how the other Reginalds found you.”

“Yeah.” she sniffles. “I teleported centuries in the past from Prime Earth, which explains why I look younger. I didn’t age physically because of the magic. Something to keep me even more immortal.”

Five doesn’t know what else to say now that practically everything is connected.

“You... You’re also helping other Earths to stop their Erins in their theaters?”

“No.” she responds. “I teleported to Prime Earth, so that’s why I helped in the theatre. It’s the first multiverse to ever stop its apocalypse after Zero Earth couldn’t stop its own. That’s why it’s called _Prime_ Earth.”

“We get it.” Luther interrupts and Five even forgot that they’re there too. He’s still holding onto Trinity, who’s now looking at the big guy. The others are calmer and worried but calmer. “This makes more sense now. But the apocalypses in other worlds...?”

“They’re gonna be stopped.” she makes sure. “Second Reggi saw everything that exactly happened in Zero’s past and he predicted everything successfully until he died. The other Earths are gonna be fine. The apocalypse only happens in Zero Earth. Zero Earth is dead forever.” She swallows. Five looks back at her and strokes her cheek softly; he’s still a newbie to physical affection. “Crap. I feel like shit.”

“Wanna go lie down?”

“Yeah.” she mutters. They move away their arms from each other, but they remain close. “You all could use some sleep too, you know? You can lie down under the stairs. There’s space for everyone and a lot of coats there. Or you could also go back to Prim-”

“No.” Ben interrupts. “You need us. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

They all notice how Trinity melts by the tenderness. Especially by Ben, the kid she helped when he needed it the most. Now, they’re doing it in return.

Five takes her hands.

“I’ll take you to your room.”

**~~~**

They both end up in three levels over the entrance hall. Five looks around. More walls, more shelves, more books, nothing new. Trinity guides him until they’re facing her old cracking door.

“There it is.” she says with a hoarse voice, pointing at the door. Five stays in front of her. She reaches for the knob behind her, but she doesn’t move. “I’ll sleep a little.”

“Sleep as much as you need.”

“Well, Second Luther is coming back from the Moon. We’ll have to leave in the morning around midday, okay?”

“Okay.” he nods and touches both sides of her waist. They don’t move at all. They look at each other’s eyes and it feels deep despite her blindfold. She swallows hard and deviates her look. No, that’s not something she needs right now, so Five coughs and moves away. “See you in the morning.”

She opens the door. Five is saddened to see that her walls are all shelves.

“See you in the morning.”

She enters and closes the door. Five frowns and curses in silence, turning around and leaving.

**~~~**

They’re getting as comfortable as they can under the stairs, where Luther has moved two large sofas. They cover themselves with jackets and coats. On one of the sofas, Klaus kisses Dave’s crown before closing his eyes but opens them immediately when they all hear and see Five getting close. Allison sits up, frowning and opening her palms.

“What are you doing here?” she spits.

“Going to sleep?” Five shrugs and is about to sit on a comfortable chair, but Luther takes it away, which makes him fall on the floor. Five protests and growls, standing up. “What now?”

“You should be with Trinity.” Diego complains. “She needs you.”

“She needs all of us.” Five counterattacks. “And before you say anything else out of context! There’s nothing else happening. She’s _Vanya_ , remember?”

“Oh... my... God...” Bopha mutters, not putting up with his pretended conviction. Five’s not even sure about what he’s saying. “Really? After that weird tape we watched? She’s not Vanya anymore! Hello?”

“She-”

“Listen.” Bopha interrupts and Luther is amused by her intervention. She takes courage to sit on the floor and look at Five from her position. “I know you have doubts. I know all of that shit, I know what it's like to feel insecure about the other person’s feelings, but you go with her.”

“But-”

“Five.” Dave looks at him straightforwardly. “Believe me, as someone who has believed that the other person didn’t deserve me...” Klaus squeezes his hand. “She does. You deserve each other.”

Five closes his eyes for some seconds and takes a deep breath.

“What will happen, will happen.” Luther says from his position on the floor and Bopha nods in agreement. “After spending decades alone, she’s a totally different person from who _Vanya_ is. Come on. Go.”

Five clenches his jaw and gives up. He strokes his hair before teleporting back to the third floor.

**~~~**

Trinity hears three knocks right before turning off her only light, so she stops and sits on the bed.

“Who...?”

“Five.” he says. She keeps silent at the other side of the door, perhaps putting on her blindfold. Five takes courage and gives up on that feeling of not taking the first step. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

Five comes inside and closes the door. She’s sitting on her bed. The bedroom is small and with books. The small window is covered with a blanket. Five locks the door and goes to sit next to her. They look at each other.

“Wanna talk about something?”

Five bites his lips briefly and shakes his head.

“No.”

Trinity’s surprised.

“Oh.” she adjusts her blindfold and sighs. “Well... Can’t sleep?”

Five tilts his head and strokes her shoulder, which makes her shiver.

“No.” he confesses. “I wanted to be with you. I _realized_ that I wanna be with you.”

Trinity takes long in answering. Then, she clears her throat, disbelieving.

“Uhm...” she mutters. “I mean... Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” he nods. “You wanna be with me?”

“Yeah.” she nods too. Five is kind of relieved and feels something in his diaphragm. Is this how Klaus and Dave feel like too when they’re together? Is this how Diego and Patch feel when they both meet in the infraworld? “I want to.”

Five cringes but in the good sense: he isn’t accustomed to all of this by any means and neither of them have had a long relationship, if that’s what they call this. In the future, Five only bumped into three women he was drawn into... but nothing like her. Trinity only dated two men before the decimation of Zero Earth.

“Good.” he whispers. Trinity hates the shiver she feels from her ear to her back. Well, actually, she doesn’t hate it, but she’s not used to this. Crap, are _love confessions_ this awkward with normal people, if they can even call this a love confession? It wasn’t even a confession. About the _love_ part... “I’m gonna stay here for a while, okay?” She can’t speak, so she nods and rests her head on his shoulder. He’s content with the gesture and smiles briefly. They get comfortable and sit with their backs against the wall of books. He has a lot of questions, like what if the magicians are going to need their help in saving other worlds from their apocalypses or their monsters, but he doesn’t want to ruin the moment. It’s half past five and he sighs and hugs her shoulders. He tries to make small talk despite being terrible at it. People usually start to like a person by knowing their tastes first and then their personality, but he has done it upside down. “Do you have several purple outfits or you just wash one once and again? Which, gross.”

“Well...” she chuckles, squeezing his hand. “Behind these shelves, I have my closet with other outfits. But... I actually don’t like lilac.”

“You don’t?”

“Not at all.” she responds with a sigh. “I prefer baby blue. You?”

“No idea.” he confesses. “I guess blue, but not... not much time to think about my tastes.”

“Except coffee?”

“Except coffee.” he chuckles. “Actually, black coffee with two teaspoons of sugar.”

“Brown sugar?”

“Brown sugar.” he echoes. “I still prefer normal sugar for coffee. I prefer brown sugar for _funfetti cookies_.”

She looks at him in disbelief and Five lifts an eyebrow.

“Cookies? I didn’t take you for a sugar person.”

He shrugs and strokes her hair.

“Well, _funfetti_ cookies are an exception.” he comments. “Also, I like hash browns for breakfast. You?”

“Not a fan of hash browns.” she says, tilting her head. Five rolls his eyes; of course, if she doesn’t like French fries, she’s definitely not going to like hash browns. “I like a good toast with butter and a cup of tea accompanied by a glass of orange juice.”

“Really?” he pretends disgust. “Tea and juice together for breakfast? No wonder Zero Earth was destroyed.”

And, as usual, despite everything she has experienced, Trinity pretends to be offended and huffs a laugh.

“Let me remind you that Prime Earth had to have a Harold Jenkins to mess everything up.”

“We stopped the apocalypse first.” he taunts. They keep silent for a while. He wants to know more. Five tries to reach both ends of her blindfold behind her back and she flinches, facing him. “What?”

“No.” she says seriously. “Not it.”

“But-”

“No...” she hisses, shaking her head frantically. Five tries to talk, but she won’t let him. “No...” He takes her hands quickly so that she can’t do anything. She feels vulnerable without her hands moving, even more about her blindfold. Five guesses that she started being _Trinity_ when Second Reginald took her as a magic student, so she had to wear the blindfold to blend with other magicians. Everything boils down to the blindfold. Before it, she was a fragile, traumatized old woman without anyone by her side. After it, she’s Trinity, the person she is now and the person he... _appreciates_. Despite that, Five does want to do this because he wants her to open up. Like a flower under the rain. “No...”

“Trust me.” Five insists, making her look at him in the eye. They don’t move a bit. “Trust _me_ , Trinity. Trust me.”

She keeps quiet for a while, hesitating, wondering and wandering with her own mind, battling with herself.

“I can’t...”

Five tightens his eyelids closed and takes a deep breath before resting his forehead against hers. She shivers. No, the amount of emotions of her eyes looking back at his would be too much.

“You can.” he says barely above a whisper, barely under the faint yellow light of the ceiling, but it’s enough to see her features. He still has his eyes closed and supposes hers are too. “You can. You have me. You have me for this.”

She moves her head in all directions before taking a deep breath, dropping his hands and nodding almost not noticeably. But he does. Her breath is so close... Five opens his eyes and takes both ends of the blindfold and touches them. Then, he touches the knot of the bow behind her head and tries to untie it. It takes some seconds until the knot loosens. He tries to be soft when he undoes the blindfold and gets rid of it, putting it aside on the bed.

She has eyelids. But they’re closed with strength.

“Tri.” he calls. She strokes her own face and sighs with a stutter. “Trinity. Open your eyes. Please.”

“I c-”

“You can.”

After _another_ while, he patiently sees how she opens her teary eyes.

Green.

He waits until she looks back at him and her pupils blindside him. He stares at her. _Shit, shit, shit._

After another silence, the millionth one in this long night, he takes her jawline with both of his hands. He doesn’t know what to say. His mouth has gone on vacation to Australia and his heartbeats to Indonesia, a country with a lot of earthquakes.

“See?” he mutters with a dry voice. “Not a big deal.”

He can _see_ as she rolls his eyes and rests her head on one of his hands. He dies a little on the inside and comes back to Earth, completely sure about this. Completely grounded, totally decided, with the goal in his soul, as cheesy as it may sound. He moves her face closer and closer until they close their eyes when their lips join.

They remain completely still, both having forgotten what a kiss on the lips was like, not having experienced it from a long time ago.

It’s awkward. But a _good_ awkward.

They kiss for some more seconds until they part and deviate their open eyes. After seconds, they take a deep breath and she scratches her head. Five cracks his neck.

“What?” he huffs. “Too weird?”

“Well, yeah.” she says, looking back at him with those _green_ eyes. He tilts his head. “But... a _positive_ weird, you know?”

“Yeah.”

Five takes her jawline again and they try to kiss for the second time. This time, they find courage to move a little bit. He tries to tell himself not to imitate dirty kisses from movies, doing this on his own, and she tries to follow, take a little bit of control herself but letting herself be carried too. The monster inside herself is calm, quiet, even pleased. She leaves that thought aside and focuses on _now_. He focuses on the moment too. They continue it until he feels his body _relaxes_ , feeling something in the bottom of his stomach; he briefly remembers how Klaus told him once that despite his brain being from an old man, his body is still a teenager, so it tends to _react_ as the body of a teenager.

Five gets away abruptly. He has shivers in his _entire_ body and despite how he makes it through, he has to deviate his glance.

“What?” Trinity asks worried. “Too weird...?”

“No! No.” he insists before she can worry too much. He gets more comfortable and strokes her neck, which melts her. “No, it wasn’t you.” He grinds his teeth, trying to tell this out loud. It’s hard when you’ve been raised to repress yourself. “It was me, I... I guess that I don’t wanna mess this up.”

Trinity opens her mouth and closes it several times. Then, she seems to understand.

“Oh.” she hums. Five cringes for bad now, feeling embarrassed. “No worries.” God. Is she real? “Let’s... Let’s just go on with _us_... and see what happens. Okay?”

Five looks back at her when he remembers she has eyes. He nods slowly and strokes her chin.

“Okay.”

They kiss for the third time and they don’t stop, without knowing what will happen in the next minutes.

 _Whatever happens_.

_**"WHATEVER HAPPENS", Michael Jackson** _

_He gives a nervous smile, tries to understand her side_

_To show that he cares...  
_

**~~~**

“Do you think butterflies feel butterflies in their stomachs when they fall in love?” Klaus asks under the stairs. It’s 10 am with a little bit of light coming outside by the translucent window next to their spot, Five is not with them, and some of them are still sleeping. Luther sleeps like a rock, snoring. Allison is awake, but she doesn’t say anything, thinking and listening. Diego and Ben are walking around the zone and Dave is right next to him, holding his hand.

“No...” Bopha responds, still sleepy. Five hours of sleep is not much but enough for them. “In any case, they’d feel _humans_ in their stomachs.”

“And what about seahorses?” he asks while scratching his beard. “They’re pretty weird.” He stirs on the sofa and sits up. He stands up after yawning like a hippo. “I’m gonna try to find the bathroom.”

Dave follows him. After some minutes, he finds the bathroom, washes himself and on their way back they bump into Five going downstairs, with a towel on his shoulder, the same outfit he was wearing last night (suit jacket and dark, normal pants) except the shirt, which is now baby blue. Klaus analyzes him when he gets close to their intermediate level and, when Five gets in front of them, Klaus opens his mouth at the realization.

“You banged.”

Five stops in his steps and his head trembles.

“... Wwhat!?” Five frowns and accuses. “What are _you_ talking about right now?”

“Come _on_!” Klaus chuckles, funny. Dave tries not to laugh for his mannerisms and Five stays frozen in place. Crap. It must be true, then. “The wet hair, the skin. You’ve just had a shower, that explains the towel. A different shirt, Tri’s favorite color by the way! Oh, and you must be hungry, right?”

Five grinds his teeth and bows his head.

“I guess silence means yes.” Dave comments.

“Yes!” Klaus celebrates, clapping his hands together. Five clenches his jaw and takes a deep breath. “Or not?” he teases.

Five huffs before looking up.

“Do I need to confirm it?”

“Pretty please.” Klaus begs.

“Fine!” Five protests. “I did.”

“Woo!” Klaus screams as in victory and Dave laughs. “Yeah, baby! _My bro has just spread his butter on Tr-_ ”

“Let’s get back with the others.” Five interrupts before his brother can get more excited than he should be. Klaus keeps celebrating it but in silence. The three of them return under the stairs and the others are already folding the coats that are not theirs. Diego and Ben are back. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Allison says, yawning, and folding a jacket that acted as a pillow last night. “Where’s Trinity?”

Five is about to answer when Klaus holds his laugh, which everyone notices. Five rolls his eyes and sighs.

“She’s taking a shower.”

“Oh, _she’s taking a shower, she’s taking a shower_.” Klaus croons with rhythm. Five threatens him with his glance, but Allison starts noticing something weird. “Tell ‘em, Fivey.”

“Don’t call me that.” he cuts.

“Tell what?” Allison asks.

“ _Tell ‘em, tell ‘em, tell ‘em_.” Klaus keeps singing, moving his waist. Dave laughs and Ben tries not to. Five is trying to control his inner fury. “Come on!”

Diego would have chuckled or rolled his eyes, but he’s trying to read through the situation. Five has a different shirt, a towel on a shoulder and his hair is wet. He sees as Five briefly touches his stomach out of hunger. Diego expands his eyes.

“You had sex with Trinity?” Diego says more than asking. Five moves his head in all directions, hesitating. Luther tilts his head, Allison opens her mouth in shock and Ben glances at Five. Bopha doesn’t do anything; she’s not surprised. “Oh my god, you did.” Diego claims, to which Klaus chuckles. Five doesn’t say anything, definitely confirming it. “Damn. When we told you to cheer her up, we didn’t mean _that_ way.”

“I was actually thinking about _that_ way.” Ben comments.

“Me too.” Bopha adds with a funny tone, to which Luther chuckles.

Klaus keeps crooning to himself while the others keep making conspiracies about last night. Five growls and sits on a chair, giving up. Normally he would have teleported away, but they need to stick together, especially after everything they’ve been through.

“... so how was it?” Luther asks. Five snaps. He can’t believe what his brother has just said.

“None of your goddamn business.” he spits. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. He had promised to make the last stand for his family and not letting it pass like he did with Vanya in the apocalypse. He’s not going to do that by keeping things to himself. He has always leaned towards not opening up and moving on, but so many things have changed so far. He takes the towel between his hands. “But yeah... it was good.”

The others are surprised for his comment.

“Good good or _really_ good?” Klaus asks.

Five thinks about tonight and feels something in his diaphragm. Bopha notices it. _The humans inside the butterfly’s stomach_.

“I don’t wanna talk about my things.” he says. “But, you know, it’s her. It was _really_ good.”

“Fantastic!” Klaus claps his hands together. “Amazing!”

“You happy now?” Five asks and his brother nods. “You better. We have to go back to Prime. I hope there wasn’t any monsters overnight.”

“I don’t think so.” Trinity says from behind, getting close with her usual lilac clothes, a braid and the blindfold Five got to get rid of last night. The others pretend they don’t know anything. “Good morning. Let’s go to Prime. Second Luther must be close.”

They stand up and start getting the chairs and sofas back to their places. Before anything, Five takes Tri’s hand and she looks at him.

“Hey.” she says low. “You okay?” He nods with a very faint smile. “Good.”

“Good.” he echoes. “The blindfold? Still on?”

“Not letting anyone else see underneath.” she says more seriously. Five hesitates.

“But, you trust my siblings, right?”

“I do.” she responds with honesty. “But...” She sighs. “You have to understand that the blindfold thing is _very_ intimate for me.”

“I don’t get it.” Five confesses. “But I accept it.”

Trinity smiles.

“Thank you.” She sighs. He wonders what must be going on inside her head, but then, she gets close a little bit and gives him a short kiss on his cheek. “Let’s go.”

**~~~**

They arrive at Luther’s and see everything is in the exact place compared to how they left it. It’s close to midday. They have breakfast while trying to make small talk. They’re still shocked by what they saw last night for two long hours, so they try to get distracted. Allison feels closer to her too, not just for remembering how Zero Allison died, but also for Trinity’s story. A long, exhausting story.

They get out of the house and they walk for a few minutes, looking all around them to see or listen if there isn’t any attack currently happening. They have some of the old talkies Hazel gave them all days before dying, so they use them when they part in small groups. _Mario and Luigi_ are with the other ghost. Luther and Bopha are together and Allison is with Five and Trinity.

“How many monsters appeared when I was gone?” Trinity asks.

“Eight.” Allison says while they keep walking. “As far as we know.”

“As far as you know.” she echoes. “Okay. I don’t see anything... They’ve attacked around the center of the city so far because that’s where there are more people...”

Five reflects on it. He thinks about the possibility of some of the monsters going outside the city, but the monsters have already located exactly which city he is in.

“You mean, they could go outside this time?” Five doubts. “Why? There’s nothing outside the city.”

“Not about the place.” she states. “Remember. The deserted highway, where Erin froze time.”

Allison and Five open their mouths in surprise.

“Why could the monsters go there?” Allison stutters.

“For figuring out where and when is the source of energy that frozen time in February.” Trinity supposes, stopping on the sidewalk when the other two do that. “About eight months from that, so they’ll leave immediately... if they don’t sense Five.”

She shivers about that possibility. Five is not afraid about himself and his safety (well, he is a little bit), but Trinity is even terrified, so he takes her hand with confidence and she looks back at him, hesitating.

“Hey.” he calls with attention. “We’re all in this together. What if all of us go close to that highway while I’m in another place?”

Trinity seems to react and clears her throat.

“Yeah.” she nods. “It could work. Let’s tell the others.”

**~~~**

They go back to the highway. Five notices they all seem uneasy, especially Klaus and Dave. He must have already told him what _got_ to happen in the destroyed parallel multiverses when he returned from 1955.

He tries to focus and they all kneel on the land yards away from the road, trying to be attentive around them. There’s barely one car passing each minute.

“Okay.” Trinity says, activating her talkie and pressing a number. “Five, are you there?”

 _“Yeah.”_ he responds. _“I’m at the café already, in the restroom. This place is about one hundred yards away, I think.”_ He keeps quiet. He’s in a café about one mile away from the road. They hope it works. _“If things get too complicated out there-”_

“No.” she cuts. “No way. I’m not losing you. We’re gonna be fine. You’re not going out there with those monsters. You just take people away in case they’re too close-”

_“Tri-”_

“Don’t get close to us! Got it?”

Five hangs up the talkie. Trinity curses and growls. That means he’s going to go out here in case things get too fucked up.

She looks at the others, a little bit uncomfortable because of the conversation but more uneasy. However, they have a big capability of willingness to do anything if they have to, something they learned from preventing the apocalypse the second time around, in this new timeline.

They wait until, around 1 pm, the sky starts to get dark; not with dark clouds because it’s like a pitch-black blanket that wraps the sky and a couple of stars are visible. They get ready and they take a deep breath when they see the monsters appearing little by little; first the dark dot in their center, then the rainbow colors around it and, later, the tentacles, floating all around the clearing and the highway. A car stops immediately, but, before they can run to save the people inside, several tentacles go through it and it explodes.

“Fuck!” Trinity screams. “Let’s go!”

They run and try to stop all the cars that try to pass. Some of the vehicles get to escape thanks to them. Allison feels inspired and she rumors a lot of people at the same time; her Zero version was way more powerful. Maybe she already is; she just needs practice. Trinity shoots several times with her yellow energy and Klaus gets to limit the monsters’ attacks. They’ve learned so much about their movements, so the group stays open-mouthed when two more appear, being seven now.

Klaus starts feeling tired and tired, so he has to make the three ghosts intangible. Trinity is handling it okay, but two monsters wrap her with all their tentacles. She stirs in their movement; she has to concentrate to generate an expansive wave to get ride of them, so it’s being hard. To make things worse, she barely notices how Five teleports with them and helps people, looking back at her at one point. She tries to yell at him to run away.

Then, the entities _look_ at Five, and _read_ him.

“Five! RUN!...”

And the tentacles cover her mouth. The other entities throw their tentacles to Five and he gets to dock them for some minutes. He ends up tired too, so he’s shocked to notice when the monsters grab him too and white light starts appearing at the tip of the tentacles. Five screams.

Trinity screams with her mouth covered. Then, in a lucid moment of desperation, she closes her teary eyes with strength and listens to her inner self.

_“Please... Entity...”_

And her inner self explodes in a yellow wave.

It blinds them for a few seconds. They all feel their bodies numb. They have to rub their eyes to have their sights back and realize that the monsters are still there, but _stunned_ , something they didn’t know was possible. The road is a mess, with its pavement out of place. Five is lying on the floor, unconscious, and Trinity is dragging on the floor to check out if he’s okay. The monsters are aware of the situation again, so they _look_ at all of them, seeming furious. Klaus is about to take a step forward to contain them, but something else deviates their glances.

Something makes the seven monsters be contained, to limit their movements, their floating, their arms. They look confused, actually, all of them are, especially as they see the entities being dragged from behind by something. That _something_ generates a pale explosion that makes the monsters scream. Some of them disappear, some of them fly away into the sky. The group tries to stand correctly and they see the white sphere gives itself shape; a human shape; a female shape.

Vanya. Prime Vanya.

Allison sobs and runs.

The Earth feels so different.

Vanya floats down to the road and makes her light disappear. Once she’s self-aware and conscious about the place she’s in, looking all around her, she takes a deep breath and looks up. She doesn’t have much time to react though, as Allison gets right by her and hugs her, making her step backwards, but she hugs her back, closing her eyes with tenderness. Klaus joins the hug. She missed this.

They split from each other and the rest of her siblings get close. Ben, being intangible, feels a little down for not being able to hug her. She looks calm, more matured, determined and sorry.

“What a way to meet again, right?”

Allison sobs while chuckling and kisses her crown. She’s melted by the gesture and looks at the road. They do the same.

Trinity and Five are still on the floor. She’s kneeling, shivering, doing CPR.

“He’s not breathing!”

They get close. Klaus kneels down next to his brother and takes his pulse. There isn’t any.

“I don’t feel him in the infraworld.”

Ben closes his eyes and knows what’s happening.

“He’s in the limbo.” he states, given he’s still visible. Trinity growls out loud and keeps doing CPR. “Is there any way to bring him back?”

Trinity stops and trembles so much that Klaus has to hug her with strength on the road.

“There is...” she mutters with a dry voice. “There is.”

_**"RISE AGAIN", The Rankin Family** _

_And then we rise again_

_When the light goes dark with the forces of creation_

_Across a stormy sky  
_

**~~~**

They don’t have much time to explain all of what has been happening these last months to Vanya, but they try to summarize it as much as possible. They arrive at Second Earth and their other selves are already at their Academy, so they have to hide in Trinity’s bedroom, which is kind of hidden.

Luther puts Five on the bed and Trinity runs to uncover the blanket of the window and open it so that there’s clean air. They all gather around the bed, feeling trapped, but that doesn’t matter. Somehow, Trinity manages to stop freaking out, take a deep breath and talk.

“We have to keep his _corpse_ warm.” she hisses. “Not technically a corpse, but still...” She gulps. “... for his body not to be ruined before... he comes back to this world.”

“To the world of the alive.” Klaus finishes and Trinity makes him a gesture. They get outside the bedroom, careful of not being stopped. “What is it?”

Trinity’s on edge, but she gulps deep again and sighs.

“Well...” she mutters. “This... This is not easy. But...” She hesitates. “But I need your help.”

“My help?”

“Yeah.” she nods. “I need a _Klaus_ to make this right. We can’t teleport to other Earths with Five being on the limb and Second Klaus... well, you know.” Klaus knows. The drugs and all that shit. Second Klaus must be already out of rehab and coming to this place for attending the future funeral. “So... There’s a spell, an old one. They bring people back, either it’s from the limbo or from the infraworld. And I need someone with necrokinesis to help me with a part of the spell.”

Klaus’ mind is pure chaos right now. His fear of not being able to cope with necrokinesis and telekinesis is coming to his head again.

“I, uhm...” he mumbles and strokes his own face. “But I don’t know magi-”

“Don’t worry.” she hurries. “We need Five to fight against the monsters.” She tries to find the right words. “My master told me he’s the _key_ , which... makes me panic because he could die for real...” She sobs, not wanting to imagine Five sacrificing himself because he’s supposed to be the key. “But, about this spell, I’ll do the magic part. You do the rest.”

Klaus nods playing with his own hands.

“Okay. What do I have to do?”

“I’ll close my eyes and do my magic with my hands, relaxed as you should. I’m gonna get you into the infraworld.”

“You what?” he hisses in order not to scream.

“Once you’re back...” she tries to explain carefully. “... You have to find the limbo and, then, my spell will be connected to that place, so you go and take Five. The limbo... not even the magicians don’t know how it is. But you’ll know.” Klaus hesitates. “You can find it. You found yourself in the infraworld, right?”

Klaus smiles. Remembering what happened there, remembering Grace’s lullaby.

“I did.”

“Then you’ll find the limbo.”

He has so many questions right now.

“How do I take Five from there?” he asks worried. Trinity clenches her jaw. “Tell me the truth. You swore to tell us the truth.”

She sighs. They both know that both of them don’t like at all where this is going.

“H-Hate me how much you want, but...” She gulps once more, playing with the belt of her clothes. “You... You have to exchange his soul for another one.”

Klaus’ face falls down.

If he exchanges one soul for another in the afterlife... it’s like killing a ghost in that world. Changing a soul from the limbo for another one already dead is possible for the person in the limbo to be alive again. However, the soul that was dead would... _move on_. It would disappear from the infraworld, resting in peace for real, and not being able to be conjured back into the real world ever again. A _real_ death. Like Hazel’s and his dad’s because Klaus doesn’t feel them anymore.

Klaus feels his mouth dry, so he has to gulp. He frowns.

“Are you sure...?”

“I’m not.” she says barely above a whisper. “But... it’s Five.”

Even with that sentence that would make people think she’s selfish, Klaus thinks she’s not. He thought the same thing about himself. She’s not doing this to bring Five back just for the upcoming battles, but for herself. Klaus nods despite the uncertainty.

**~~~**

Luther, Allison and Vanya stay right with Five if things get too complicated with him. The others sit around a coffee table in a closed room where Bopha is guarding the zone. It’s pretty isolated, so they guess there are not going to be problems.

The three ghosts, Trinity and Klaus set the table aside and Klaus and Trinity lie on the floor with their palms open. They close their eyes and breathe deeply, for some minutes.

“Fine.” Trinity mutters on his left. She’s on edge clearly. “Fine... Once Klaus is in the infraworld, the three of you will be gone from the physical world.” The ghosts nod, unsure. Dave is utterly worried that something bad happens to Klaus. “Klaus. Don’t get in danger. Just try to search for the limbo.”

“Okay.”

She moves her hand to his neck and touches his nape.

“You’ll feel a pang on your crown.”

And, before he can ask how much it will hurt, he feels as if someone has just hit his head with a golf club.

**~~~**

Klaus opens his eyes, for the very third time in this place.

He takes longer than usual opening his eyes and stopping his disorientation, but when he does, he cracks his head, lying on the grass, and sighs after sitting little by little.

Crap. Why does he have to be knocked out to enter here?

He remembers that Diego was on the limbo before dying himself, but his limbo was different because the entities’ abilities have forced Five be into a weird limbo state between dimensions; that is, an interdimensional limbo, but it’s luckily connected to his infraworld.

He starts walking. He doesn’t know where he is, but he starts walking with determination just like eight months ago.

**~~~**

“He’s getting cold.” Vanya says, touching her brother’s forehead on the bed. Allison moves quickly and puts the window blanket all around him, especially the back of his neck. The three of them keep close. Several minutes pass. They’re either worried about Klaus or about Five. At least, they have their other sister with them back again, even if it’s just around twenty four hours. “So...” Vanya tries to break the ice. Allison sees as her sister has the same dark outfit they all wore in the theatre in February. She hugs her shoulders, all of them leaning on the bed. “Trinity is _me_?”

Luther shakes his head.

“She was. But not anymore, not after everything she’s been through.” he responds. “Five... Five is kind of _dating_ her.”

Vanya frowns, not understanding at the beginning. However, the more she thinks about it, the more sense it makes. Despite she didn’t get to really know her, Trinity is the very few kind of people Five would consider to date.

“Oh.” she mutters. “I’m... surprised, but not shocked.”

“Yeah.” Allison smiles and it immediately fades. “They’ve been through hell trying to admit their own feelings, even more admitting it to each other. They’re still not over. They slept together last night.”

Vanya is tenderized for a second, then, she wrinkles her nose.

“In this... bed?”

Luther and Allison cringe too a little bit, but it’s not the time. They remain close.

“Are... Laura and Mark okay?”

Allison takes her hand and looks at her with sadness.

“They are. They’ve been visiting us from time to time.” she mutters. “Mark is already starting his thesis.”

Vanya swallows deep and takes a deep breath.

“Good. Thank you.”

**~~~**

Klaus sees something shiny at the distance, so he runs until he realizes it’s a big cliff. He carefully walks over it and comes back in his steps, falling to the ground, when he realizes not even the end of the abyss is seen. He doesn’t know what to think and stays there, kneeling on the tough floor, about twenty yards away from the end of the forest. He’d thought the interdimensional limbo would be more epic than a cliff with no visible bottom.

“Klaus!”

He turns around when he sees the three ghosts he loves the most getting close, so he stands up. Once they’re together, they all look to the close cliff for an eternity. Time here feels an eternity.

“What is that?” Dave asks, attentive.

They all look over it to analyze it better. They can’t see an end. There’s a dark mist covering the depths, but they see as a white yellowy sparkle all over the bottom appears under that mist, moving like a calm tide of waves.

“Tri’s magic. The spell connected to _here_ already.” Diego calls. “Which explains why Klaus needed to come here to find the limbo. How... What... What do we have to do?”

Klaus frowns and shivers. The others notice.

“I...” he swallows. “We have-I-have,..” He takes a deep breath and exhales. The others fear the worst. “To bring anyone back from the limbo, we need to-to exchange a soul for Five’s soul.”

Everyone stays quiet and still. Klaus’ eyes get wet and he turns around, covering his mouth.

The three dead men stare at him before staring at each other. There’s three stages of a person’s existence. The first one is in the real world, the world of the living; the second one is the afterlife, where souls wander around (and occasionally going to the real world as ghosts); the third stage is the _true_ death, when the ghosts can’t appear anywhere because they stop existing. If a soul from the afterlife is sacrificed, it ascends to the third stage, making Klaus unable to conjure the person because the soul just stops existing in any dimension. The real death.

Klaus starts sobbing wetly, so Dave gives up on the urge of not comforting him and goes to cuddle him from behind.

Diego and Ben look at each other. Dave is out, so it’s between any of the two.

They step a bit aside for having a private conversation. They don’t have much time to think because the interdimensional monsters could come at any moment to Prime Earth, and even less time to find for Reginald or Hazel or Patch to have more options (of which the two first options are not valid; they don’t know that), which could be even more cruel.

It’s either Diego or Ben.

They keep quiet between each other for a while, trying to have _the_ conversation despite not wanting to. It’s about the fate of the two men, it is something to really care about. After this silence, they decide to talk about this once and for all.

“It’s gotta be me.” Diego says before anything. Ben shakes his head frantically, totally convinced. Diego crosses his arms. “I’ve done this before. I know what it is.”

“Yeah, you’ve already sacrificed yourself.” Ben points out. “And this sacrifice would mean for real. You’ll stop existing _forever_. This is serious.”

“I know!” Diego hisses low and trying not to freak out. He doesn’t like the look on Ben’s eyes. “I know...” He scratches his face, bothered, upset, angry at the situation. “But... you have to let me do this.”

“No.” Ben interrupts. “No. There’s nothing to talk about here-”

“Stop it!” Diego interrupts him back. They keep glaring at each other. Then, Ben closes his eyes, shaking his head. “Stop it, okay? There’s no other way.” They take each other’s hands and keep quiet for another while. “I’m the fighter in the family, you know that.” Ben bows his head, in denial but knowing his brother is right. “It’s gonna be me, okay? No one else. Me and only me.”

Ben hesitates a lot, but he ends up nodding regretfully and taking a step aside with his legs failing a bit. Diego sighs with determination, even if he can’t breathe. He takes steps forwards and touches Klaus’ shoulder. The two other men turn around.

“Me.”

Klaus breaks down and hugs his brother with strength. The last hug.

“No...” he sobs uncontrollably, shivering all over, hugging him tighter. “No!... Not again...”

“Yeah.” Diego can’t help but stutter too with teary eyes. He hugs his brother back and looks at a tree being moved by the wind. He notices that their mother is calling him. The wind is calling him, guiding them in the afterlife. The wind flies behind them somewhere else. “Yeah... It’s gotta be me. Just me. It’s gonna be fine. You’re all gonna be fine. This is the last stand.”

 _“It is.”_ Ben thinks.

Dave is stroking Klaus’ back, but he notices sideways as Ben is taking steps back, little by little.

“Ben!”

The other two men turn around and freeze when they see Ben at the very end of the cliff. His eyes are full of determination, his body is not trembling. He’s more than willing to do this. He knows he’s going to do this. Then, he realizes that he was destined to do this from the very beginning.

“No. It’s gonna be me.”

Klaus feels desperate, but he doesn’t take any step forward because that would make his brother jump before they can discuss the severity of the case.

“Ben! What are you doing!?” he sobs with a hoarse voice.

Ben closes his eyes after a beat and shrugs, determined and clarified, completely sure about what he’s doing. The realization hits him like a truck. Ben gulps.

“I’m tired.” he confesses, frozen on spot. That’s not the main reason he’s doing this, but it’s an inspiration when you’ve been dead for around two decades. “I’m really tired.”

“Listen, Be-” Diego tries to say, but no can do.

“You don’t understand.” Ben interrupts with a louder tone. “I’ve been...” He swallows with his emotions running high. “I’ve been dead for more than fifteen years. I’m exhausted, being pulled to the physical world all over again.” Klaus grinds his teeth with tears, but he doesn’t say anything because he knows Ben has been holding this for too long. It makes sense. It hurts a lot, but it was meant to be. “I’ve barely been in the afterlife, not being a real ghost here. But... I know I can do this.”

“How do we know if it’s even gonna work?” Diego rambles.

“We don’t.” Ben responds. “But not even Trinity knows this is gonna work. We have to try, at least...” He takes a step back on the air and keeps his other leg on the rock, keeping balance, which makes Dave hold Klaus for not being impulsive. Diego keeps rambling to his brother, trying to convince him. He hasn’t been that close to him, but he does know that he’s stubborn when it comes to doing something like this for his family. “Guys. Take care of each other, okay?”

“Ben...”

“I haven’t had much time to talk to Vanya.” he says with teary eyes and stuttering. “B-But hug her for me, okay?”

“Ben...!”

Ben closes his eyes and takes his other leg back. And he falls.

His brothers scream at the same time, but then, they hear a fire-ish noise all over the infraworld and a wave of light coming from the bottom of the abyss.

Klaus wakes up on Second Earth.

**~~~**

Luther is telling some of his most relevant trials to Vanya, who’s extremely surprised and proud to see that he has constructed a life. They’re sitting on the bed and Allison is listening from the chair, but they all snap at the same time when Five takes in a deep inhalation and sits up abruptly, grinding his teeth and screaming.

It worked.

Luther opens the window more for the cold breeze to clear his brother’s mind. Vanya makes him lie down again and Allison takes his hand, until he’s aware of his surroundings and sighs deeply. Then, he growls from the pain in his head.

“Are you okay?” Vanya asks carefully.

Five looks at her, frowning.

“Vanya?”

Oh, right, he wasn’t conscious when she appeared back in Prime Earth.

Vanya smiles with sadness and sits close.

“Yeah...” she hisses softly. “It’s me. I’m back. For the monsters, apparently.”

He coughs and sits again between Luther’s arms. It’s like his body had been stoned.

“Tri.” Five just mutters, shaking his head. “Tri, where’s Tri? Ben? Diego? Klaus? Dave...?”

They realize that Five won’t stop moving and shaking, so they all stand up (slowly because Five has just been brought back) and get out of her bedroom. They realize it’s around 3 pm and their other selves are close, so they slip carefully and find the spot.

They open the door of the coffee table and stop abruptly when they see Klaus crawling on a corner and his face on his knees, Trinity with her eyes under her messed up blindfold, and no other ghost, none of the three. Bopha couldn’t do anything.

“Are you okay?” Five asks Klaus but getting close to Trinity, standing up in front of her and stroking her cheeks to clear her mind. “Are you okay? What happened? How did you bring me back?” Allison kneels in front of Klaus and touches him. Luther gets inside and closes the door. “What happened!? Where are the ghosts?”

“The...” Trinity says with a dry voice, knowing that Klaus can’t speak right now. “The... The two ghosts must be still in the infraworld, perhaps. B-”

“Two ghosts?” Allison asks, extremely worried and feeling more than uneasy. She shakes her head in denial and hugs her brother on the floor. “ _Two_ ghosts? What happened?”

Trinity sighs and takes her hands out of the blindfld. Even she is having a hard time telling this.

“B...” she stutters. “Ben... _ascended_.” They don’t understand. Trinity and Klaus just told them they were going to bring Five back, but not exactly _how_. “His soul is not in the real world. Neither the land of the dead.” She sobs, so Five strokes her neck. “Ben’s gone. For real. And forever.”

Vanya opens her mouth and rests her back against the wall. This is like when they realized Diego was dead all over again. This is the same feeling that ran over her all over again. She thought she wasn’t going to feel like this anymore.

“What?” Luther asks, frowning. “What do you mean _for real_?”

“His soul doesn’t exist anymore.” Klaus whispers with red eyes and sobbing. He’s not even breathing well. “If a soul from the afterlife sacrifices for another soul in the limbo, it disappears. It stops existing... It’s gone forever.”

Now Five is the one who moves away and rests his back against a column of books, feeling dizzy all of a sudden. No. No, no, no. He swore to never let any of his family to die anymore, to make the last stand, and if he dies against the monsters, Ben’s _real death_ would be meaningless. This can’t be true. Not _Ben_. He has always been the one who kept them together all of their lives.

Trinity moves and puts most of Five’s weight against her shoulder as support.

Vanya kneels down and Luther takes her hand in support too.

**~~~**

Unluckily, they can’t spend hours remaining like this around the coffee table as they’ve done countless times, so they have to stand up immediately (which feels like shit) and go back to Prime.

They end up gathering around the coffee table of Luther’s house instead. Klaus goes to the bathroom with his phone and goes back and lies against Allison to cry together. They keep quiet for a while, hoping that any monster doesn’t come anytime soon, knowing that it’ll be like that. They just need some silence for Ben.

Someone buzzes the house and Klaus cleans his new tears and goes to open immediately. He comes back with two people, two people that make Vanya open her eyes, stand up and run to hug them. It’s exactly what happened with Diego, when he died and they bumped into her.

Crap. So much has happened since then.

Vanya goes upstairs to the guest room with Laura and Mark to make an update, to small talk, while the others are moving around the house. Klaus relaxes on his bedroom and tries to conjure the other two ghosts left. Luther and Allison are talking in the kitchen. Bopha has decided to go to her home to rest a little bit, but still attentive if she receives a call from them.

Then, on the sofa, Trinity is punching Five’s shoulder, which makes him go _ouch_ despite it hurts just a little bit.

“Ouch.” he pretends to complain, wrinkling his nose. She crosses her arms, but she’s still in the best mood as far as can be expected. “That was my bad shoulder.”

Trinity obviously knows that he was shot at that left shoulder when they avoided the second event to stop the apocalypse.

“I know.” she taunts for a second, but then she’s serious again. “But you scared me shitless. I told you not to go outside of the café at the highway.”

Five sighs as she rests her head on her shoulder.

“I know.” he says with the same tone as she did. “But I couldn’t let my siblings get hurt. I couldn’t let _you_ be hurt.”

“You know I can’t die, don’t you?” she asks, lifting an eyebrow. “People who host interdimensional monsters can’t die.”

Five bites his lips, worrying about something he hadn’t thought about so far.

“You can’t die?” he confirms rather than asking.

“I can’t.” she responds. “This entity I have will get bored of me eventually if it doesn’t come out by any other reason, but I don’t know.” They look at each other with their faces too close. “Don’t worry about me.”

Five smiles with taunt.

“I do.” he mutters. “I can’t help it.”

“Woah, suddenly you are all... _opening up_.”

“After doing what we did last night, you tend to be more open minded to your partner.”

Trinity doesn’t panic when he says that. They kiss briefly, until they hear heavy steps returning to the living room. Everyone’s attentive to Klaus, whose eyes are full of desperation.

“I can’t conjure them!” he yells. Luther gets close and holds his shoulder. “I can’t...”

“Hey.” Luther calls, serious and determined. “Hey, Klaus, look at me.” Klaus sighs loudly and he gets to look at his brother. “I know you hate to hear this, but don’t worry about them right now.” He moves to the coat stand. “I heard the radio. They’re attacking the city.”

Five frowns.

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

**~~~**

They run. They decide to be together in the three attacks that are currently happening around the city, but one by one. The first one is exactly in the center of the city, exactly where a football stadium is, with three entities. The second one is in the north suburbs, a sighting of them around some houses caused by two monsters. The third and last one is near the center, in a big mall where Five remembers he got Dolores in their original timeline, and with three monsters as well.

There are more people in the mall (which will be in second place), but the center of the city is in more danger because of the possible deceases, so they go there first. They arrive in front of the stadium, where two of the monsters are killing people in their vehicles and the other one is tearing the stadium apart. Vanya flies away without a word and starts fighting it. Trinity flies to the other two. Five grinds his teeth but starts teleporting citizens into safety.

Klaus goes against the two monsters in the middle of the road and limits their actions for Trinity to attack them easier, although it’s still very hard. Luther and Allison help people too. Bopha, Gonzalo and Lizzie arrive and alternate between helping Vanya or helping Trinity with Klaus.

Luther sees as one of the tentacles goes through Klaus’ leg and makes him fall to the floor. He screams in pain. He’s about to run to him, but one of the vehicles lands in the middle of the air to the road, so he hides behind a street mailbox and he takes out the radio out of his pocket, lifting his ski mask to see better. He manipulates the buttons and the radio signals arrive from different channels.

_“... and the winner of the best dog contest is...!”_

Luther frowns.

“No.”

He moves some wires and the channel changes.

 _“... confirmed, they’re attacking the Central Stadium... patrol cars have been trying to reach the zone of the heroes, but it’s getting complicated...”_ Luther looks up at the mid-afternoon sky and notices the helicopters. _“... 911, what’s your emergency?”_

Luther shivers in the middle of the fight as a reminiscent of what happened in Zero Earth, but he listens.

 _“Hello?”_ a familiar voice says, but he can’t identify it. _“It’s... What’s going on there?”_

_“They’re attacking the Central Stadium, at 667 Central Avenue.”_

_“Thank you.”_

The signal turns off by itself. Luther frowns. Why did the girl say thank you? Luther can’t think, especially when he has to take a step back to avoid another car, crashing a couple. He sees the blood under the vehicle and shivers. He tries to push through it and keep saving people.

Trinity thinks about something. She reluctantly remembers how cosmic energies react when they touch. Later, she goes to glowing Vanya, touches her with her inner dying star and that produces an explosion that makes the entities scream and fight for survival, but they end up yelling in desperation when the dark dot starts consuming them from the inside and they disappear with another wave of energy.

Vanya falls in the middle of the air, but Luther takes her. Five teleports in the middle of the air for taking Trinity and being back on the floor. They reunite in a dead-end. Bopha and Gonzalo make a tourniquet for Klaus. Lizzie makes crystals that help Vanya and Trinity to be conscious again. They take a deep breath, stand up with determination and go to this second place.

They hide behind a corner when they see the entrance of the mall being already reduced to ashes. The three monsters are constantly moving their energy tentacles to crash people, go through them or take down the mall piece by piece, wall by wall, and the ceiling is practically gone. They enter and they take the same positions; the ones helping people go to help citizens and the ones against the monsters go fight them. Klaus can’t stand up too long with his leg, so he hides behind a wall while using his powers.

Five lands on the last floor of the place after taking a baby back with the mother and loses his breath when he sees a tentacle grabbing his hurt brother. He’s about to teleport to rescue him, but he sees a bazooka being shot at the tentacle, making the monster scream and drop Klaus. Five runs and hides Klaus behind the wall completely.

“What happened?” Klaus asks above a whisper, confused, a bit shocked. Both brothers, everyone in the last floor, see as a man with a dark suit and the bazooka arrives and screams when firing again. “Isn’t that...?”

It can’t be their man. Klaus felt him in the infraworld before he left forever, so it has to the his copy.

“Hazel.” Five mutters.

**~~~**

They don’t know what the hell he’s doing here, but they accept any help. The bazooka gets to weaken the entities, so Vanya channels energy and projects it all over the monsters. Trinity contributes to their final disappearance by expanding a wave to them. The entities scream and they eat themselves, dying, just like what an octopus does in stressful situations.

They rest in a mobile store that looks chaotic because suddenly people ran away. They rest on the floors or on the walls. They see as Hazel gets close to the shop and stays on the door frame.

“What the hell are those things?”

They feel a pit in their stomachs. It’s been about eight months since they saw his face, since he died in the theatre. He’s looking at Five, trying to understand. Five tries to take a deep breath before talking.

“Remember...” he swallows. Damn, all of their moments with Hazel pass in their minds, like a family album. Haz was family too. “Remember that the... Handler used to say the apocalypse _always_ happens no matter what?” Hazel nods, resting his bazooka on the door frame. “Well, we managed to stop it and, apparently, these cosmic monsters don’t like the fact that there are a lot of parallel universes.”

Hazel nods, but he doesn’t understand anything.

“Okay...” he mutters. “What now?”

“The third place.” Five says slowly. Hazel’s copy still hasn’t seen anything compared to the original one. “Two monsters.”

“Okay.” Hazel repeats and stares at Trinity. He opens his eyes wider. He only saw her on the motel when those two magicians helped the Handler escape. “Who the hell is she and why is she holding your hand?” Five smiles as he bows his head. “Are you cheating on Dolores?”

Five just told Hazel about Dolores _once_ , but he still remembers apparently.

“Ha.” Trinity spits. “I could never be up to Dolores.”

Five laughs and squeezes her hand.

“Fine.” Luther states. “Let’s go to the suburbs.”

They go to the suburbs of the city. The monsters are not doing anything weird. They’re just floating around a streetlight that’s already turned on, despite the Sun is not totally gone. It’s like they’re looking for someone.

“Stay behind.” Trinity says before walking, but Five snaps and makes her stop. They glance at each other, frowning. “What?”

“I’m coming with all of you.” he states, serious, and he endures her determined look. “We already talked about this.” he hisses, crouching behind a bench, watching sideways as people are running away or trying to make a video of the monsters at a safe distance. “I’m coming with you.”

Trinity bows her head and stutters.

“Five...”

Five takes her cheeks.

“Trinity.”

That’s enough to make her shut up. He puts down his own scarf and also her blindfold a little bit. It’s only been hours since they finished, kissed more and fell into sleep together in her bed, but he has missed her eyes. He can’t promise anything. He can’t promise her that he’s going to be fine... because they don’t know that.

They kiss briefly before they cover their faces again. They turn to the group and they all see that the monsters keep floating around the houses for a while, until it’s 8 pm and they scream, generating an expansive energy that makes them bigger and, when they pass their tentacles over the houses, they create fire. That’s their signal.

They split again in two groups. Nevertheless, these entities seem to act differently. They’re attacking people too, but they’re also looking at the floor, trying to find what (or who) they’re looking for. They look at Five, but they also look at Trinity. After a while, Luther realizes it’s because she has a dying star inside her, so it’s like identifying one of them inside a person. Later, he remembers that three entities disappeared when Trinity caused the apocalypse in her own whole multiverse. Are those two entities two of the three that were fighting her in that plaza? In that case, where is the third one?

Trinity’s scream distracts them all when five tentacles (from both monsters) grab her and make them shine, wrapping all that energy around her. Five knows perfectly that they’re doing that to distract him, but he still teleports to the middle of the air and grabs her. However, they take him instead and their tentacles shine again. Trinity is about to do something, but Vanya flies towards the monsters and shoots them a ray of energy so intense that they scream and fly up into the sky.

**~~~**

Five opens his eyes and he recognizes the ceiling of his house. He coughs, eyes burning, but Hazel gets close with a glass of water and makes him drink. It gives him nostalgia.

He sits on the sofa little by little and notices everyone around him, sitting on chairs, except Trinity, who’s kneeling next to where he is. She looks more upset than angry.

“Sorry.” he says before anything. He dries the saliva off his mouth. He can barely blink properly. “I know you can’t die, but they can make you disappear or some shit like that.”

“You know that’s how the first time you almost died, remember?” she stutters and sighs, trying to get over it. Despite the situation, Five can’t help but take her hand, something that keeps him sane. “Well... This... This is definitely not over...” They know that. It doesn’t make it any easier to assimilate. “We have to be on the watch for the next attack.” They look at the old clock of the wall. It’s 9 pm. “Probably in a few hours.”

They immediately turn on the TV and put on the news channel. They try to eat something. Luther turns on his radio with Hazel’s help and they have two radios now, one with the signal from the police and the other one for the news. The only ones that have a phone are Allison and Klaus (who’s the only one who uses it frequently), so Vanya takes Allison’s and, in her sister’s room, is trying to text her partners to tell them to keep themselves safe. Klaus is trying to keep himself calm for the upcoming battle because he doesn’t want to be too distracted about the fact that he can’t conjure anyone at the moment. Five and Trinity are alone.

The others are watching the TV. Hazel is sitting on the table of the kitchen. His radio is starting to fail, so he’s trying to find a good signal, rolling a button once and again. He frowns.

_“... There are ashes in the building, inside the abandoned fence...”_

That’s not important, so Hazel changes the signal and snaps when he hears the emergencies.

_“... there’s a lot of fire! Energy...! A ball of light shining...”_

Hazel stands up and he already knows the rest have noticed.

“Let’s go.”

They gather the ski masks or their scarves and everything useful they can. Vanya has got to get into contact with her partners, so she’s calmer, as far as can be expected at least. Klaus is still on edge, but he’s willing to do anything. Five and Trinity are equally accelerated, but they both push through it.

The fourth place of the night is near the center but more located to the south, around an avenue full of fashion shops, close to where Allison has been working. They are running, about to arrive, when a monster comes out of nowhere and grabs two big trucks that leave them cornered against the wall of a building and a third truck is thrown above their heads, acting like a ceiling. It’s totally dark. Trinity makes light with her hand. Vanya and Klaus are already moving their hands over their heads to lift it together, but Five taps Tri’s shoulder. She frowns.

“You have telekinesis too.”

Trinity doesn’t move an inch.

“I... I can’t use it without my violin.” she stutters, never thinking that she was ever going to mention the instrument she destroyed when she had just arrived on Second Earth.

“You can.” Five insists, being patient and reverent, not qualities that are usually attributed to him. He grabs her shoulder. Even with her blindfold in between, it feels powerful. “I know you can.”

Trinity bows her head, but she immediately looks up and gets closer to the other two telekinetic people. The three of them look up and focus, clearing their minds, before moving their hands and lifting the truck over them. They get rid of it and climb the truck of the _wall_ to get the hell out of there. The streets are on fire, but apparently, the three entities are not done. They all try to fight them.

At a given time, Luther is recovering after falling to the messed up sidewalk, so he doesn’t notice how one of the entities deviates the shoot of Hazel’s bazooka and re-directs it around his spot. However, a shape arrives in front of him after running to his place and makes the bullet stop in midair with his hands, just like he was constantly doing after avoiding the second event. Luther clears his eyes and his jaw drops.

“Diego?” he mutters, coughing and shaking the dust off his clothes. His brother gets rid of the bullet by exploding it in the air. Then, he turns and kneels to help him stand up. Diego looks different, but he hasn’t changed a bit at the same time. “Klaus got to conjure you in the middle of the battle?”

Diego tilts his head.

“I’ll explain later.”

They keep fighting for a while. Five hides in a corner and tries to think fast because they’ve been fighting for hours and this one doesn’t seem to have an end. The monsters want him and Trinity; they want to _finish_ him and they want to absorb Tri’s dying star to have more power so that they can destroy the whole universe. It’ll be easy to sacrifice himself, but Ben did that already for real, his brother is not coming back, so he needs to do something significant, and it’s not as simple as dying for the greater good.

 _“And what do_ **_you_ ** _know about greater good?”_ he remembers what Erin told him once.

He reflects on it. Erin told him a whole bunch of information about the monsters without knowing it, like the fact that the more power, the better to destroy worlds. She also told him that once the entities got rid of whatever was creating so many parallel universes, they left the multiverse. Which means that there’s no monsters in Zero Earth anymore.

She also told him that, related to the last point, the monsters had just a _little_ bit of mercy in forgiving living beings. They think that humanity is despicable, but they didn’t attack any other animals because of their innocence. However, the humans don’t have anything to prove they’re worthy of being forgiven, except... love? Humanity is lost, humans are evil and they will ever fight each other, but love is the best they can do.

He can’t die and neither will Trinity because no way he’s going to let that happen. However, the love they have is the only thing that’s worthy to prove them. However, the monsters would still rage because he still can create more parallel universes. That was a problem.

But there’s a very _risky_ solution to it.

He doesn’t even know if there’s more than 10% of success. He’d ask Haz, but he’s changing the bullets of his rifle, firing them uselessly at an entity. He still has to try, _they_ still have to try this, to make the next right thing, despite this could be the very end of humanity and life across the universe, there’s nothing else they can do.

This is the end. Again.

Five keeps hiding in his corner. It hurts. It hurts being useless, not doing anything for the battle _on purpose_. It hurts seeing all of the scars Allison receives on her back after landing on one of the few ceilings there’s left. It hurts seeing his other sister almost unconscious after one of the entities throws her against a wall. It hurts when one of the energy tentacles burns Klaus’ shoulders, but he escapes on time before getting more hurt. It hurts seeing the three other gifted people being pursued by fire, seeing how Bopha’s plants are hurt or dying. It hurts seeing another entity throwing vehicles all over again against Luther, Hazel and Diego, as much as he’s surprised to see his brother again. And, especially, it hurts seeing Trinity out of strength and, for that, being wrapped by tentacles again. But, despite everything hurts like fire, he’s still hidden, waiting for the right moment.

The entity that has Trinity starts to absorb her power, which makes her scream loud, which makes Five cover his eyes for a bit. It’s extremely dangerous because of the fact that once the monsters have her dying star, they could devastate the universe, but it needs to be done. He just has to wait for the exact right moment.

The other two monsters see that one of them has her, so they round her with all of their tentacles and absorb the yellow star little by little. Trinity stops screaming, which means she’s unconscious (or even worse), but he can’t confirm because there’s a lot of light. The monsters drop her body on the road under them without caring less and the monsters look _bigger_ , more ambitious, more powerful. They stop their movements and float still, preparing themselves for another decimation.

This is it.

Five moves and teleports quickly next to Trinity on the road and raises his hands over his head after screaming. They look at him. He defies them with his eyes, but he doesn’t move. He can hear his siblings’ scream, what the hell are you doing, but he stays still, kneeling on the road and sweating oceans. He doesn’t know what to do now, especially now that the monsters are looking at him, not moving. He decides this.

Five moves next to Trinity’s body and doesn’t notice a pulse. He pauses. Of course, it’s logical that if her dying star made her immortal, she’s not anymore. He takes a big breath before taking her blindfold off and looking at her empty eyes. He rests his forehead against her and screams loud, sobbing, shaking, it even makes him want to die despite everything. He hides his face in her neck, holding onto her body and not getting away despite they could all die.

However, Trinity’s body is moved and he moves away, only to realize she’s the one moving on her own, stretching her hurt body, and he screams in relief and hugs her tightly, face wet, body still trembling noticeably. The monsters are not doing anything, just watching the scene floating in the air.

After an eternity, Trinity hugs him back, but it doesn’t last long because the tentacles wrap him again and take him up. Before the others can do anything, they watch as the entities make their energy brighter and they start _absorbing_ out of Five, his energy, but he doesn’t scream. It doesn’t hurt. They keep drawing his energy. Before they can avoid that, they drop Five in the air and Trinity reacts, catching him. He shakes in her arms and, despite the pain, the exhaustion, he cracks a smile and she chuckles in a nervous relief before they hug each other on the destroyed pavement. The monsters growl loud and everyone looks.

They don’t speak because they don’t really have a mouth, but they do _talk_ in everyone’s mind for making conversations... and trade.

 _“Humans.”_ they say at the same time. Their voices are imposing, scary to death, and with a weird _accent_ they can’t even begin to describe, like from a language even older than Tamil, the oldest language in the world. The others keep close to each other. Five and Trinity are holding onto each other on the road. _“You will not be destroyed. However, for avoiding more possible creations of parallel universes, the old source of space and time travel will have to be isolated.”_

They don’t understand, until realization dawns on them. They’ve absorbed Five’s powers because they’ve realized humans are at least good at love, but they don’t want to take risks again, so Five has to leave to God knows where.

 _“Zero Earth.”_ Five thinks.

 _“Exactly.”_ the entities claim. That leaves them blindsided. Five has to leave to Zero Earth forever because there are too many parallel universes created on Prime Earth. However, it makes sense, because there’s only one parallel universe on Zero Earth. That would make him be isolated. _“Prime Five Hargreeves has to go to Zero Earth for all eternity.”_

It doesn’t matter where every one of them are. They feel like their chests constrict, not wanting to accept the idea, but later, realizing that there’s no other way. He’s going to be alone forever and they can’t do anything about it.

However...

_“Can I go to the past of Zero Earth? In another parallel universe?”_

The monsters keep quiet for a while.

 _“Yes.”_ That would make him not being alone, because there would be people, his own original timeline because techincally, Trinity’s universe is the primitive universe from Zero Earth. However, he’s going to have to change the timeline from the past in order to make the Zero Hargreeves not existing for not creating another Five that would insist on saving that multiverse. It’s cruel, but it’s reality. _“You can. Leave now.”_

The monsters, being as powerful as they are, open a rainbowy portal about seven feet tall behind the monsters. That’s Five’s passage, his passage to never be with the people he loves the most, ever again. He hates that idea, even having in mind never seeing them again, having a normal life, growing his body old without them by his side. Everything started with them and, now, it’s going to finish without them together.

The monsters look impatient.

Five grinds his teeth and hits the road with his two fists. He moves away from his spot and looks back, where the group is already gathered together; worried, trembling all over, with desperate eyes or in complete denial because of the cruel fact they’re never seeing _Five_ again. Their adventure started when Five jumped into the future, they’ve been through hell and more next to him and, now, he has to leave.

Most of them are already sobbing when he starts getting close. Hazel bows his head and deviates his eyes. In any case, it’s the copy, not the original one, but he still cares. The three gifted children look sad too. When he turns to his siblings, all of their eyes are red. Diego, as usual, is in denial with the situation, shaking his head. Klaus and Allison cry. Vanya closes her eyes and cleans her tears. Luther, being like he is, knows that Five has to do this.

Five gets closer and hugs his tall brother. Everyone joins.

Once all of the water from their bodies is gone and they’re not able to shed more tears, they move away. Luther taps his shoulder with pride.

“Go.”

Damn. Only Luther could make such a brief goodbye so significant and strong.

Five moves away and returns with the woman he loves. He takes her trembling hands and looks straight into her green. She looks in denial but desperate all at the same time. Her face is all wet from her very thick tears. Her chest is irregular from her breathing. Her knees are trembling. Five smiles briefly with tenderness and she doesn’t know why... until he points at the portal with the crown of his head.

“... What?” she mutters very slowly, understanding what he exactly means but not accepting it, in complete denial. Five chuckles.

“Come with me.” he whispers and everyone can hear that. They don’t like the idea of Trinity leaving too at all, but looking at both of them together, it makes a lot of sense as well. “Come with me, Tri.”

“Are... Are you listening to yourself?” she hisses, in denial and shaking her head. It’s a weird idea because for the last century, all she has been doing is helping other Earths. “I can’t... go back to _Zero Earth_.”

“You’d have me.”

Trinity doesn’t say anything else because by just knowing that Five is going to be by her side, that’s all she needs. She hesitates. She doesn’t like the idea of leaving Prime Earth and the rest of the Earths forever too because, once they go through that portal, Five can’t make them return. There’s no space or time travel, no magic, no dying star.

But they’ll have each other.

Trinity nods slowly and they both look back at the others. She’s going to have Five, but they’re always going to have each other.

“Hey!” she screams at them through thick tears and they can see their green eyes. They feel as hopeful equally as sorrowful. They all need this. It hurts like hell, but they all need it. “Take care.”

They nod at the same time. Five takes her hand again and they kiss briefly before looking back at the group one last time forever. That doesn’t make them want to die. On the opposite, this way they’re all going to have an end to this story full of apocalypses and monsters and ends, sorrows, pains, and deaths. Five and Trinity look at each other before stepping forward, moving slowly and being absorbed by the portal.

The portal disappears in a matter of seconds. So do the monsters forever from Prime Earth.

**~~~**

**.**

**.**

**.**

The emergency lines are pure chaos. It’s been one hour since the monsters have disappeared forever and since Five and Trinity left them. That leaves a void... and it’s kind of blocking, but being like they have been, are and will ever be, they push through it and leave the zone. They’ll remember the woman with a tragic past that traumatized her as the woman who helped through their lives and the man that time travelled as the man who was _Five_ , their brother. It’s even weird to think that they could have a normal life together, but life is _life_ ; this is a second chance for both of them.

They get rid of the ski masks, except Diego, who didn’t think about putting one before going to help. That leaves a lot of questions, but before asking, they hide in a park and rest under a tree while Hazel is trying to buy ice creams for them in a twenty four hour grocery store.

Diego sighs, which makes the others look at him, frowning. He shrugs.

“What?” he hisses, drinking water.

“What?” Allison echoes, tilting her head in disbelief. “You _sighed_.” She doesn’t know how to explain this. “And you’re drinking water. Ghosts are not supposed to do that.”

Diego hesitates and opens and closes his mouth several times, but nothing will come out. After a while, he sighs again and rests his back on one of the trees.

“Well...” he tries to speak, something at least, for not leaving the group in suspense. He doesn’t know how to explain this because he barely understands. He knows what has happened to him and that it will be definitive, but it creates uncertainty of... what now? “Well... Remember the abandoned building where I died, Luther?” His brother nods, trying to figure this out. “I... I _woke up_ there.”

They don’t get it. Even when Hazel returns with the ice creams he hands them over, they don’t get it yet. Then, Klaus gasps, moves to his brother and takes his wrist, looking for a pulse. Klaus gets away quickly, scared, in disbelief, not understanding anything. He then realizes he doesn’t feel Diego anymore in the infraworld.

“NO! No way!”

They all seem to get it now. Luther looks for Diego’s pulse on his neck and Gonzalo on his wrist again and they get away too.

What.

The.

Hell.

“No way!” Gonzalo spits, in disbelief like the rest of them, stroking his jaw. “Wow, _la puta madre_.”

“I-I know it seems crazy.” Diego stutters, standing up and shaking his head when his siblings are open-mouthed and just a little bit desperate. “Shit, I can’t even begin to believe all of this, but it’s real.” The realization seems to dawn on them. Allison covers her mouth with her hand. Vanya’s eyes get wet. “I think... I think I’m alive again.”

Then, they remember most of the things Trinity has taught them and, between one of those things, it’s the fact that the resurrection spell used on Five brought him back, but they remember too that the spell could also bring back more people to the real world, depending on how many souls the sacrifice was equal to.

Apparently, because he brought back Five _and_ Diego, Ben is equal to more than one soul. They’re not surprised.

Diego appeared in the last place he was alive, where he died.

Klaus has to know. What this could all mean leaves him breathless, wordless, soulless, knees trembling, heart racing, and stuttering. He remembers that Luther heard a familiar voice from the police looking for the first address with the first group of monsters in the coordinated attack, a voice they all know from just a few times, a soul he doesn’t feel anymore in the infraworld.

Patch.

Ben is equal to three souls.

Klaus has to know. It leaves him more breathless, more knees trembling, standing up and getting a bit away from the trees, and wanting to die a little bit too, but he has to know. He tries to get rid of this feeling, clear his mind, sit on a meditation position and close his eyes. He feels calm at first, but then he checks out, realizes what he needed to know and sobs. He screams in disbelief and opens his teary eyes. He hears footstep and Luther takes him in his arms and makes him stand up. They’re all worried, but he can’t stop this unnerving, happyand giddy feeling that makes him chuckle out loud and cry at the same time.

“I don’t...” he stutters a lot of times until he’s able to put the right words. He chuckles again. “I don’t... I don’t feel Dave in the infraworld.”

They all open their mouths at the same time. Which means...

“Ben was equal to four souls?”

Klaus nods and laughs, knees failing and falling to the cold grass of the night. Luther kneels next to him and he realizes about another fact. Diego appeared in the abandoned building and Patch must have appeared in the motel. And now that Dave is alive again...

Crap.

Diego realizes first before anyone else.

“Dave’s in Vietnam.”

**~~~**

They don’t know how they get to calm Klaus down because he’s still chuckling out of nervousness and feeling like shit all at the same time, but they go to Luther’s and make him fall asleep. Then, they all gather around the sofas and fall asleep too in a matter of seconds. Diego is uncertain about this because he hasn’t slept in eight months, existing as a ghost, but after a while, he’s able to fall asleep too.

Next morning, they see it’s 11 pm and they’re still sleepy except Bopha, Gonzalo and Lizzie, who have gone to their houses. It’s only family now. They’ve slept around ten hours, but they feel good (as far as can be expected). Five and Ben are still gone and they’ll never forget that.

But then, Klaus is going downstairs with energy and prepares a big breakfast for them and all; orange juice, cereal, fruit, toasts, butter. He’s dressing with a lime green crop top, black tight pants, Converse sneakers and hair straightened but with a tiny braid on the left side of his head. The anklet is there, as always. He spares a glance at the picture of Vietnam, on the photo shelf, before starting to prepare his satchel bag.

“Come on, come on!” he cheers up while his family is tidying up the table. It’s midday already and he’s already putting on his penny lane coat, dark, but a great contrast to the color of his crop top or the pink bow he’s wearing on his wrist as a bracelet. He claps his hands together and puts on his satchel bag. The others are already preparing their own. Diego, now alive, prepares his one too. “Let’s go to Second Earth.”

And they go to Second Earth.

They’re knocking the door at quarter past twelve and the house teleports them inside. They discretely slide into the main garden for training, but it’s just the first day to the apocalypse in Second Earth and their own versions of this world must be outside. Bopha and Lizzie couldn’t come, so Gonzalo is the one who runs around the zone and watches that there isn’t anybody and that the position of the cameras don’t point at the corner they’re hiding, behind some wooden columns. He comes back and shakes his head.

“There isn’t anybody, but the other momma and the other monkey. They’re working together.”

They remember them both and it gives them nostalgia. Five, Ben and Trinity’s departure still hurts like hell, but Grace and Pogo give them another kind of melancholy.

“Okay.” Luther says, nodding and carefully looking at the entrances to the garden; one on their left and one on the bottom, the one where they’ve gotten out by. He sighs. “Pogo?” he asks out loud, but nobody answers. He tries again. “Pogo!?”

There’s pure silence.

“Maybe they can’t listen.” Diego suggests and he notices a breeze of wind that wraps his body before pointing at the other entrance; the one on their left. He remembers as his mother guided Klaus in the infraworld. Diego doesn’t care about the cameras; he just follows the wind and the rest follows. “Here.”

They get inside and Gonzalo tells them there are no cameras in that hall. There are fewer shelves there and some small stairs rounded by a lot of windows. They hear footsteps.

“Prime?”

They turn around and see Second Pogo sticking out his head over a mezzanine wooden floor connected to the stairs. He’s not that different from their Prime Pogo but the vestments of a magician, so the nostalgia increases. They know that Pogo didn’t tell them everything he knew, but they miss him. Klaus doesn’t feel him in the infraworld, which means that he went straight into the real death, his soul is gone.

“Yes.” Luther states. “We have to ask you something.”

“About what?”

Luther looks at Klaus, who nods with nervousness and takes a step forward, looking up.

“I’m asking to locate a person. Please.”

Pogo hesitates, frowning.

The family knows that despite there’s a lot of versions of themselves around the omniverse, the personalities are not exactly 100% equal. For example, one Allison can be more narcissistic than another one or one Diego can hate their mother or not. Depends on the smaller events across their lives. This also applies to Pogo, who looks more on the defensive. They can’t even begin to think about how Seventh Earth is, an Earth with gladiators. That’s why its symbol is none other than an axe.

“Who’s asking?”

“Klaus.”

Pogo calculates that he must be looking for Dave.

“Locating people is complicated.” he spits. “Especially after Trinity’s gone because she is, right?” he asks and Luther nods as a confirmation. “Right. But it’s gonna be long. We don’t even know where-”

“Vietnam.” Klaus interrupts and his interruption surprises the man upstairs. “Please.”

Pogo hesitates, but he ends up nodding. He goes to the camera rooms and deactivates the ones pointing at the location room, just in case. They all go there and Pogo opens an old, red book. The room is octagonal, darker but more yellow. They don’t know where the lights come from. Pogo presses a button and a globe with lights descends into the center. Pogo reads the book and leaves it aside. He makes something with his hands and touches the globe once. The Earth turns around once and it shows other lights, different lines, even different cities.

Prime Earth.

Pogo moves the globe a little bit until he spots Vietnam.

“Do you have something significant from David?” he asks Klaus, who immediately takes off his left Converse and hands him over the anklet. Klaus puts the shoe back on and Pogo analyzes the anklet. Then, he puts the object over the country Klaus once fought on and a dot of white light appears, around the center. “In _Hue Central Hospital_.”

Klaus nods, not knowing what to say anymore.

That means he’s okay?

“Thank you.” he just says after receiving the anklet back.

Pogo doesn’t seem happy about having done this because he has so much work to do, so the family goes to the entrance hall and goes back to Prime Earth. While Klaus rambles about how to get money to go to Vietnam, Allison realizes that she has seven missed calls from her lawyer, so she quickly steps aside and calls her.

 _“I thought I told you to be attentive from my calls.”_ the lawyer, around her forties, accuses, but before Allison can excuse herself saying there was no signal, the older woman interrupts. _“I did it.”_ Allison snaps. _“Claire’s custody is shared. The father agreed with the terms. Well done.”_

Allison looks at the phone for a while and she has to hang up because she can’t even begin to believe it. She shivers and the realization has dawned on her. She chuckles in celebration and turns to her family to give them the good news. Now they’re celebrating both successes on the day so far at the same time.

**~~~**

Almost two weeks later, Allison is given a good promotion at her boutique and now she has around two thousand dollars in her bank account. If Five were here, she would have rented another apartment for herself and her daughter, but the house is empty. It’s not enormous, but it’s enough for both of them. She’s not touching Five’s old bedroom, she’s just tidying it up from time to time, but luckily, there’s a guest bedroom she is already transforming into a room for her child. She’s dying to see her. Now that her sister has ascended to her full energy back again, it’ll feel better.

Due to how busy she has been lately, she was never afforded the privilege of seeing her. There was a brief reunion with her father around April, where she could just say hello and goodbye to her from the distance, but now, in just a few hours, she’s going to hug her and kiss her and have lunch together. She’s going to take her home before going out to lunch.

She’s straightening her hair (accompanied by a pink long dress and a thick coat she’s wearing for the weather of October) while she realizes that she doesn’t have to rent another house, so the money on her bank stays there, untouched. She takes her phone and calls her brother.

 _“Yo, Ally!”_ Klaus says. He’s as happy as she is right now and they have good reasons. Klaus and Dave have been through hell; the 2019 flirting to Klaus, even from men, which was new to Dave because it’s not like he had competition back in Vietnam, the constant intrigue that was existing in Klaus about what if his powers suffered some shit and he couldn’t see him ever again or any other doubt they’ve had together, everything has ended up like this. He’s alive and Allison has her daughter again. _“What up?”_

“Well, I’ve actually realized something.” she says with a teasing tone. “I know you wanna do it alone because you have a job already, and you already have, how much money?”

_“Around five hundred dollars. Why you ask?”_

“Well...” she sighs noticeably. “I won’t rent another apartment because Five is gone, you know? And because Diego went straight to live with Patch. So... I can lend some of what I have already for you.”

Klaus keeps quiet for a while. Then, he’s in denial.

 _“No, no, no.”_ he mutters into the phone. _“No. Allison, I know I can do this on my own, no, I can do it, and-”_

“You’ll need a return ticket for you and another one-way ticket for Dave for you both to come back here.” she makes him see. Klaus grinds his teeth. It makes sense. “You’ll also need a lot of money for taxis too, a motel for you while you search for him, more money to ask about his stay on that hospital, locate him, more taxis...” And she could go on. Her brother knows that and scratches his beard. “I can give you money. I don’t think the hospital can keep him so long without throwing him out or something.”

Right. If he takes too long in going to Huế, Dave could be kicked out of the hospital and thrown into the government for solving the question of how the hell he ended up there and more, which would make Klaus take longer. Klaus knows that Dave must be inventing something or pretending to be sick, but the lie won’t last long.

He nods, despite his sister can’t see him.

_“Okay.”_

**~~~**

Allison lends him in his bank account around seven hundred dollars, so he has around one thousand and two hundred dollars. It’s not enough, but it’s okay; it’s not like he’s going there to vacation. Not especially after what happened there last century, whether it’s the original or the new timeline.

His minds wanders. He hopes his own copy can already conjure his Dave in that primitive Earth.

While Klaus is on the computer buying his ticket, Allison is already going to the town hall and waits in the office of the judge. Judge Richter is one of the best in the district. Her lawyer, Anderson, gets inside too and discusses the papers the father and the mother have to sign. Then, in a matter of minutes, another lawyer (Marie Johnson) gets inside next to the man that used to be her husband in her timeline and the child that used to be her daughter, but even though, her heart pounds fast, especially when the little one realizes she’s there and runs to hug her. Allison hugs her tighter, still on the chair, and chuckles in relief. They move away seconds later, but Claire doesn’t stray further when her mother sits (without looking at the copy of her ex-husband) and they all start talking about the papers of the accords of the new custody. The father signs, accepting reality. The mother signs, reading carefully and sure, and the reunion is over. Claire is just staying with her mother the rest of the weekend, but it’s a beginning.

The car the group was given by the magicians isn’t much (it sounds a lot and it screams _old_ whenever they start it), but Allison drives her daughter to her home and welcomes her. She shows her future bedroom and they talk about some ideas for the decoration. She looks enthusiastic about talking again with her mom, who returns the sentiment. They wash themselves and go out to have lunch alone.

When they’re eating pasta in a good restaurant, Allison’s phone vibrates and she looks at the screen briefly. She smiles.

_“Ticket already bought. I’ll buy Dave’s when we’re in the airport there.”_

**~~~**

His hands are trembling, so Diego punches his shoulder and he frowns.

“What?” Klaus hisses, stroking his shoulder. “Remember I got burned by those freaky monsters?”

“Sorry.” Diego says on the seats of the airport. There’s only half an hour left for his flight. The others insisted in coming too, but Klaus just told them that he only needed one of them. Patch is waiting for Diego in the parking lot, of course, they’re both going to a mission. Trinity was right about them. “You have everything?”

Klaus checks out his backpack once more in the entire morning and sees inside. He also has a satchel bag on him. He sees that he has enough clothes (for both of them), three phone chargers, cash, money on his card, an emergency kit, sunglasses, the phone, the keys of his house, his ID, his passport, and his bathroom kit (toothbrush, deodorant...). He has everything and enough money for food or any other thing he might possibly forget.

“I do.” he says, stroking the dark gray leather of his tight pants. He has dark ankle boots (by the way, the anklet has to be on the suitcase he has too), a loosen green shirt and curly hair, as usual. His coat is on his arm. “I do...” he echoes with a stutter. “Oh, crap...”

Diego takes his hand.

“You know I’m proud of you?” he says. Klaus puts a hand on his chest dramatically and chuckles. “I’m serious. The three of us wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.”

Klaus sighs.

“If it weren’t for Ben.” he spits. “His soul _was_ more worthy than we will ever know.” The voice in the speakers claims that it’s time to make the queue for passing to the correct hangar. “Well...” Klaus stands up and puts on his coat. He has everything with water or metal in the suitcase for passing it through the detector. The correct things are in both bags. Diego hands him over his suitcase and immediately hugs him. Klaus rests his head on his shoulder. He would have felt better having anyone by his side on this little mission to a country he thought he wouldn't ever return, but he’s going to do this alone, at least, until he finds Dave. His eyes get teary and he sighs. They move away and they high five.

“Call us even if you cough, got it?”

“Got it.” he stutters, taking the suitcase and moving away. “By the way! Don’t let Luther eat my cereal so fast! He has finally picked the cereals properly!”

**~~~**

Luther is on their low-cost computer in the guest room, reading the prompt of his next trial. Someone knocks the door frame. It’s Bopha, leaning on the frame, calm and reading his expressions.

“Hello.” Luther greets and Bopha nods as in a greeting too. “I was reading my next case.”

“Is it too hard?”

He shrugs and rests his back against the small chair.

“No, just a domestic violence case.” he reports. “It hits home though... the husband was manipulating his wife all along...”

Bopha knows that Luther has forgiven his sister despite everything of they’ve been through, individually and together, but it still hurts sometimes. Just sometimes.

“Well, it is tough,” she agrees. “but life is the most second-chances granter, remember?”

Luther nods. He knows.

“I know. Last weekend, after Allison gave Claire to her father, she bumped into a nice man in a café. He’s really cool, not just because he watches my trials.” he teases softly and, despite he’s not an expert on teasing by any means, Bopha laughs out of pity. “I think he’s studying cooking.”

“And what about you?” Bopha points out. “Your second chance?”

Luther hasn’t asked himself that question, about the possibility of falling in love again, since Allison told him the truth under the bridge of that park. The question leaves him out of words.

“Well...” he mutters. “No idea. Not looking for any relationship at the moment.”

Bopha moves away from the door frame and her lips twitch in a faint smile.

“Think about it, okay?”

Luther nods with a faint smile too and Bopha leaves with Diego and Patch in a mission. Luther stares at the door frame for a while, until he feels _the humans in the butterfly’s stomach_. Then, he looks back at the screen of the computer and blinks several times.

“Crap.”

**~~~**

Klaus has to wash his face in the restroom of the airport because of the jet lag. He tries to recover by buying a sweet candy that is called _bánh quy mặn_ , but they turn out to be salty crackers. Luckily, an English tourist gives him instructions to buy the sweetest coffee in the world. He already has his suitcase when he sits in the café. There are signals in English everywhere, but also some other ones that have the language from the country that he can’t even begin to understand.

He begins his little mission.

After resting in the motel for some hours (and after telling his family he’s okay and after they give him orientation tips), he stands up, takes his bags and goes out. He doesn’t try to think about himself, about feeling alone in a country, but more on the actions he’s making and the places he heads up to. Some citizens give him instructions and, after mixing up another bus, ending up on the beach and coming back to where he was, he gets to take the correct bus to the right town of the hospital. It’s around 3 pm when he arrives to the last stop, so he has lunch and continues.

Now comes the hard part. He arrives at the hospital, but the guards in the gates make him fill in a form (even longer than Rachel Greene’s letter for Ross in _Friends_ ) for being a tourist and wanting to get inside the hospital. Later, even after that, he has to explain the motive of his visit to the hospital runners and he says that _his best friend is in that hospital because he had an accident and hasn’t been able to get in touch_ , which is totally true, even the best friend part. They reluctantly let him inside, but Klaus thinks that if they hadn’t done that, he would have ended up climbing the windows or some shit involving telekinesis to get to Dave.

He has to search for his room on his own. He investigates the infirmary zone, but he’s not there. He decides to look for him in the normal rooms. While he’s walking on the halls, his throat is choked by doubts. What if he hasn’t really come back? What if the spell didn’t work on him? What if he has gone straightforward to permanent death, the third stage?

When he goes to another floor, a nurse from her desk calls him and he turns around with his heart racing.

“May I help you?” she asks calmly and with a noticeable Vietnamese accent.

“Well, yeah...” he mutters and he clears his throat. “I’m looking for David Katz.”

The nurse puts her glasses back and types on the keyboard for a while. Then, she looks back at him.

“Who’s asking?”

Klaus is about to answer correctly, but he decides to put a dramatic tone to the situation and make a plot twist.

“John.”

The nurse is forbidden to tell random visitors the number of the rooms, so she has to stand up and walk to the correct one. Klaus stays there.

His heart runs a marathon against his thoughts. His knees are at the same fast rhythm as his blinks. His breath is playing hide and seek against himself. He can’t stop scratching his face, imagining he’s in the worst scenario.

But he’s not.

The nurse arrives with Dave in the corner of a door and his heart faints; it feels like falling in love with him for the third time. The other man opens his eyes wider when seeing _John_ , but he contains himself until the nurse leaves the floor and there isn’t anybody in the hall. Then, they’re running towards each other and hugging halfway, wrapping each other like bears, sobbing a little bit, chuckling and giddy at the same time.

They don’t give a shit anymore.

Their lips join for a while, exactly in the same country where they had their first kiss.

Later, they part when they hear another nurse passing by. They look at each other and hold hands as strong as they can, deciding they will _never_ let go because they have each other... and that’s more than enough.

“Let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ "Sam from trials": John Gad ]  
> [ "Abby from trials": Kathy Bates ]  
> [ "lawyer Anderson": Carrie-Anne Moss ]  
> [ "Lizzie": Kristen Bell ]  
> [ "Freewill": Orlando Jones ]  
> [ "Zero Reginald Hargreeves": Liam Neeson ]  
> [ "Third Regina Hargreeves": Meryl Streep ]  
> [ "Fourth Reginald Hargreeves": Martin Sheen ]  
> [ "Fifth Reginald Hargreeves": Joaquin Phoenix ]  
> [ "Sixth Reginald Hargreeves": Woody Harrelson ]  
> [ "Seventh Reginald Hargreeves": David Harbour ]  
> [ "Second Grace": Evan Rachel Wood ]  
> [ "Second Luther Hargreeves": Ryan Gosling ]  
> [ "Second Diego Hargreeves": Diego Luna ]  
> [ "Second Allison Hargreeves": Tessa Thompson ]  
> [ "Second Klaus Hargreeves": Chris Pratt ]  
> [ "Second Five Hargreeves": Noah Schnapp ]  
> [ "Second Ben Hargreeves": Keun-rok Park ]  
> [ "Second Vanya Hargreeves": Emily Browning ]  
> [ "Second Erin Hargreeves": Renée Zellweger ]  
> [ "Second David Katz": Chris Hemsworth ]  
> [ "old woman-looking Trinity": Diane Lane ]  
> [ "Zero Grace": Andrea Riseborough ]  
> [ "Zero Luther Hargreeves": Gwendoline Christie ]  
> [ "Zero Diego Hargreeves": Freddie Stroma ]  
> [ "Zero Allison Hargreeves": Lucy Boynton ]  
> [ "Zero Klaus Hargreeves": Jamie Bell ]  
> [ "Zero Five Hargreeves": Oakes Fegley ]  
> [ "Zero Ben Hargreeves": Luke Hemsworth ]  
> [ "Zero Vanya Hargreeves/adult-looking Trinity": Emma Stone ]  
> [ "Zero Erin Hargreeves": Christine Baranski ]  
> [ "Zero David Katz": Chris Pine ]  
> [ "Miss Sharapova": Anna Buturlina ]  
> [ "soldier Reed": Sterling K. Brown ]  
> [ "Zero Hazel": Jack Black ]  
> [ "Zero Cha-Cha": Taraji P. Henson ]  
> [ "judge Richter": Jared Leto ]  
> [ "Marie Johnson": Zoe Saldaña ]  
> [ "Vietnamese nurse": Dương Hoàng Yến ]  
> ~~~  
> Well, that was a thing  
> (Ignore the weird casting, okay? :3)  
> About Zero Earth, it is solely inspired by the looks of TUA comics, but not the same story by any means, no way; it's just a gesture; JUST a gesture  
> Talking about multiverses, I got inspired by The Flash series too about Prime Earth and all that jazz; also, all the magicians things come from Doctor Strange and the thing from X-Men: Dark Phoenix  
> Also, I imagine these cosmic monsters something like this but in rainbow colors:  
> [http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Velkoz_2.jpg]  
> As you've obviously noticed, this is long as fuck; I really hoped you enjoyed it  
> But this is not all! The Klave one shot comes next  
> I'll also try to answer some questions left there  
> Have a good day! Peace out!


	13. Extra: "Domum"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How does normality affect this dysfunctional family?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra | Warning: explicit sex

_domum: "house, home, homewards"_

**~~~**

The water from the bath is getting cold, so it’d be a good time to get out already. But he likes it in here.

Sure, he could just put more warm water in it, but he needs to get out before Miss Graham comes to their place, so he reluctantly sits on the bath, stretches his muscles, yawns and unclogs the plug of the bath for the water to leave little by little. He stands up carefully, grabs his green bathrobe and puts it on before getting out of the bath.

He quickly goes in front of the mirror and starts drying his hair with the hairdryer before he’s insisted on letting it dry with it because of the cold winter they’re having. The hair stays curlier than usual, but that’s okay. He puts the hairdryer aside and does the same as always: cotton swab, deodorant, bright yellow underwear and socks and, next, leather pants with gray and white spots (like if coffee were gray and it if were being mixed with milk) and a pink sleeveless loose top accompanied by a black jacket. He looks at himself in the mirror and nods with satisfaction. Then, he decides to let his hair over his shoulders and not straighten it. He’s perfect like this.

He goes to the bedroom and sits on the bed right next to where his nightstand is. He opens one of the drawers, takes the necessary papers for the requirements they’ve been asked and he reads them once and again in case they’re forgetting something. When he takes the necessary papers for the meeting, he smiles faintly when he sees the anklet he used to wear, but not anymore because what he needs and wants is right by his side. He closes the drawer, stands up once he puts on the black ankle boots and gets out by the door frame, which is right exactly next to what they call the _wall of memories_.

The _wall of memories_ is a several number of small to medium sized pictures displayed in the wall of their bedroom, in front of their bed. There are sixteen pictures and they’re from the pics they’ve been taking after avoiding the end of the world and from everything they could get from what was found under the ashes of the destroyed Academy (but the one from this timeline). Klaus copied some of the original pictures before moving away to New Jersey.

One of the pictures that are the more at the top of the pile of pics is the first picture they took of the entire group when they finished settling down on Luther’s house, the last box he emptied with his brother. Unluckily, that was right in the middle of his old dragging state of mind he was in, so he didn’t look at his best in the pic. All of them gathered around the sofa in the correct order of their numbers (Bopha was next to Luther, Gonzalo next to Ben, Lizzie on the floor and Trinity denied appearing).

He remembers that day they were all eating pizzas around the table that occupied sixty percent of the living room so that they could fit. Nothing else special happened that day except Five complaining how Trinity was unbearable (which is funny _now_ ).

Other two pictures from the top zone are the same thing they did when they finished moving in Allison’s and that day she had achieved taking a photo of the female magician, but it ended up a little bit blurry. The blurry pic is there after Klaus insisted.

The picture below (still on the top zone) is from one of the first days he achieved going out of his last house in that state of mind. It was a really beautiful day. Instead of waking up at midday and having a cigarette and an old piece of pizza as breakfast, he woke up around 9 am and Luther decided to take him out to have breakfast outside. They ended up at a café that was nearby. It was nice and they could go to have a walk around a park at 11 am. Klaus cheered up a little and took a selfie with his brother. That selfie is on the wall. In that same line next to the selfie, there’s a group pic of them at a theme park. The food was horrible, there were crying kids everywhere that left them all deaf and the bus that was supposed to take them home arrived two hours late when it was the moment that the month of May decided to send them a heavy rain, but it was a wonderful day because, the day before, Klaus had got to conjure Dave and they went at the theme park as a celebration. The three ghosts appear in this picture too. It’s... _odd_ thinking that the three ghosts that appear here are not ghosts anymore. Ben is gone and the other two men are alive again.

Thinking about Ben, he didn’t exactly go through hell to overcome his true death. However, it was equally harder to come to the idea of not seeing _him_ ever again; he was still trying to see the catch, that he could somehow still conjure his brother, but when he gave up on that, he did feel like total shit. He’s always thinking about the brother that didn’t ever give up on him despite the training, the drugs. It’s utterly corny, but his brother will always be in his heart. After everything Ben did for him, one of those many things was carrying on. He wonders how the family is still talking to each each when Ben was the glue that stuck them together. 

All of those pics mentioned so far are on top. On the left of the central picture, there are three small pics, one over the other. The first is when Gonzalo won five hundred dollars in the lottery and invited them all to an expensive Spanish restaurant they all enjoyed. The second (the one below all) is the beautiful table he decorated when they were celebrating pride in that year.

Dave was in awe seeing so many people celebrating how they just are. It was beautiful when he started getting used to kissing his partner in the street.

They had a good summer despite going through a lot of research about the interdimensional monsters in 2019 that haven’t appeared ever again now in 2022, nor 2020 or 2021 or ever again. Then, it was August when they decided to be more serious about that important topic. By then, they had already discovered the weird book called _Apocalypse of Prime Earth: Volume I_ and they were discussing whether they should trust Trinity or not.

At that moment he was reading a book on the desk of the guest bedroom, in front of their computer. He was calm, relaxed and okay, so he easily pulled the three ghosts into the real world before getting to the guest bedroom and read his book because his siblings were all downstairs, being loud, getting him thinking _damn, and I’m the big mouth here_.

He then _felt_ someone watching him from the door frame.

Necrokinesis, as Trinity used to tell him, is a complex world that not even magicians understand fully to these days after millennia of research. There will always be surprises for people who control and contact the dead if these necromancers keep searching for answers instead of settling down and accepting his powers, like Klaus has done. Not all necromancers are the same; for example, some of them are able to _feel_ souls better than others. Klaus is one of those who has an ease to do that, but it felt even stronger with Dave.

“What are you reading?” the other man asked from the door, resting his shoulder against the door. Klaus could even feel his faint smile.

“Well, it’s titled _color and light_ , by...” Klaus read the author. “... by James Gurney. This sir is really a pro! He uses a lot of terms I don’t understand, but the tips are good nonetheless. I think I’m digging the blue pen art.”

“Why don’t you sign up for art classes?” Dave asked, getting a little inside in the bedroom.

“Hmm, I don’t know.” he said slowly, hesitating and moving his head slightly. “It sounds weird to me, you know, _signing up for something_. Everything I learned was from homeschool, if I go to art classes... it would be the first time ever I learn something by my own.”

Dave got closer and sat in the chair next to him. Klaus had already forgotten about the book.

“Just... think about it, okay?” he insisted softly and Klaus nodded with tenderness because, right in that moment, the other man’s eyes were decorated with pride. “What?”

Klaus bowed his head and rested it on the other man’s shoulder.

“Well...” he stuttered. They had already talked about enjoying their time together no matter what happened in their future, leaving doubts behind them, but it was easier said than done. He sighed and they both hugged each other by their arms. “Just... I didn’t think I’d have these moments with you again... at all...”

Klaus is Klaus and he’s always going to have these doubts popping out in his head, thinking how much they’ve got so far, but it’s also a good thing.

“I know.” Dave said. “Me neither. You know I couldn’t promise something so big, but you ended up doing it.”

Klaus smiled into his neck.

“Huh. Good lord!” he chuckled, never avoiding humor in serious situations. “I just hope despite our doubts... you continue to be by my side.”

“Always.”

“And I also hope the magicians don’t mess up with you.” he confessed. He was worried about some magicians and demanding a sacrifice of someone dead in order to some shit, which ended up happening, but not with Dave. Damn, Ben. Damn, Vanya, too. He misses her so much. “They’re out of their minds. Not that I’m not! Just saying.”

“Talking about them...” Dave muttered. “Do you _really_ think Five and Trinity could be a thing?”

Klaus huffed a laugh and looked at him in the eye.

“Duh.” he shrugged. “I mean, they’re equally stubborn, equally in constant denial. But if their love is strong enough, they’ll push through those things and live happily ever after.” He ended up being right in everything except that they’re doing that in another multiverse. It makes him feel nostalgic. He misses his brother. On the other side, Klaus knows how much Trinity helped Ben, but what is the biggest thing she did for him? He remembers once he was having a nightmare about a hundred people stabbing him in a gore-like movie when another white shape appeared and destroyed them. Was that her? How many spells did she get to know about necrokinesis? “You don’t notice their chemistry?”

“Of course I do.” he commented. “Especially when Five is complaining how _horrible_ Trinity is, but when he sees her next day, he’s all...”

“... _affectionate_ , as far cas can be expected with Five.” Klaus finished with a chuckle. He then gulped a little. “I know 2019 confuses you a whole, but, we could go out somewhere if you want?”

“I want to.” Dave insisted. “Where? You guide me.”

A few days later, early in the morning, Klaus took Dave around the city, his favorite places (two themed bars, an intimate park, a restaurant; the picture below the pride pic in the _wall of memories_ is that selfie); they went back to his house and Klaus took a long nap. Once he woke up, he rubbed his eyes when he saw Luther lowering his blinds, which made him yawn and sit up on his bed.

“Damn.” he yawned again and sat on the edge of the mattress. Luther went to his door frame. “What time is it?”

“Around 9 pm. The others are coming for dinner.”

Damn, it _was_ late.

Naturally, what is expected to feel when someone wakes up after a three hours nap, Klaus felt a shot of energy, took a quick smoke, took a shower, dressed up in a red crop sweater with sleeves and black tight shorts, went down to cook simple salads and sat down on the sofa to conjure his three usual ghosts.

Everyone arrived; including Laura, Mark, Bopha, Gonzalo, Lizzie, and even Trinity. Klaus decided to have the mission of taking a good selfie with her. He achieved it, but he has that picture in his phone.

Klaus had had a long day so far, so the rest of them offered to clean up while he went upstairs to rest with everyone being tidying up and being conveniently busy. Around 1 am, Klaus went to his bedroom despite not being even tired, but he wanted to spend some alone time in his bright yellow pajamas and watching YouTube videos about _kittens_ and _doggos_. He was doing it at that moment, lying on his mattress, with the decoration lights displayed in his walls and his nightstand lamp the only thing lighting up his bedroom. In that room, he had some lights with the shape of clothespins that held some of his small sized paintings. He has some of that decoration in their current bedroom.

He decided to set his phone aside and close his eyes, resting his back against the head of his bed and taking a deep breath. In a matter of seconds, he felt Dave’s soul from one moment to the other, causing him to open his eyes and make a spot for him to sit by his side.

“Aren’t you tired?” Dave asked, criss-crossing his legs on the mattress like him.

“Nah.” Klaus answered, moving his arms to hold his hands. He tilted his head. “Had a long nap, remember?”

“ _I_ remember suddenly turning to you on the bed and realizing you had practically fainted when you rested your head on the pillow.” Dave teased. The other man chuckled with amusement. “It was _fun_ today.”

Klaus rested his head on his chest and Dave started to stroke his curls.

“It was.” Klaus agreed. “Gonzalo was more talkative than usual and _I’m_ saying that!” Dave laughed. “Bopha was still kinda sad for the break-up with her boyfriend, but you know Tri, always making up emotional speeches typical from movies.” Somehow, they both thought about relationships and their minds wandered to _their_ relationship. It’s been more than three months since Dave went back again and they hadn’t gone beyond French kisses that left them worked up. Not that they were complaining about making out, but... “Davey...”

“Hm?”

“Wanna make out?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

They joined lips in a matter of milliseconds. They tried to enjoy it calmly just like this, being there, alone in the bedroom, holding hands and in a quiet moment, but it didn’t even take a minute for them to go faster and deeper. After they faced each other, Klaus held onto his light gray shirt and Dave held the back of his neck. Their tongues moved inside their joined mouths, touching in the very thin line between too soft or too much.

Klaus was reveling in the sense that was pooling around his stomach (and below), melting with every movement of the other man and his sighs. In the meantime, Dave was enjoying this too much, Klaus’ sweet little sounds coming out of his mouth and pressing his body against his more; in fact, they were so focused on the moment that it made Dave think about a _possible_ issue of all this.

He moved away softly, even if it hurt a little bit how Klaus tried to reach back with his mouth, lips lingering.

Klaus opened his eyes, amused but confused.

“What, baby?” he asked carefully and with a soft chuckle that tenderized the other man. “Any problem?”

Dave tightened his lips and smiled sweetly.

“Well...” he muttered, hesitating a little bit. Even being conjured and solid for his partner, he was still feeling flustered in these moments with Klaus. He loved that at the same time. “Yeah.” And before Klaus worried too much, he continued. “I mean...” He gulped deep and held Klaus’ hands again. “... it’s been a while since we have sex and all...” Before Dave could lower his head, Klaus took his cheeks for not losing eye contact. Klaus couldn’t help but smile. “Shouldn’t we take it easy? I’m dead, Klaus.”

“I know.” he responded in a neutral tone but got to cheer himself up again. “But, what do you mean with _taking it easy_?”

“I guess... that my doubt is that if as a solid ghost I _work_ , you know, _down there_.”

Klaus understood quickly after a second. He muttered a soft _oh_ and couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Oh.” he repeated with a flirty tone, blinking slowly and making Dave chuckle in relief, tension leaving his body. He felt way better now. “Well, well, well...” He took a deep breath full of sensuality that sent Dave shivers down his spine. “... we’ll have to find out, won’t we?”

The other man nodded, not with uncertainty now, and they kissed again.

And even shorter than their first kiss of the night, they didn’t even take twenty seconds to deepen it, tongues fighting again, their tastes mixing. Klaus hugged his strong shoulders. Dave took his waist and leaned forward to put his body over his on the mattress. Klaus opened his legs for him to get comfortable more and their groins touched, making him lift his hips repeatedly to make friction. Klaus also took advantage of his hands being close to the shoulders and pushed Dave’s head downwards, making them both melt at more deepness. They were already wrecked in a matter of minutes.

With Klaus moving his hips under him, pulling his head downwards without aggressiveness and holding his hair, tasting his palate with the tip of his sweet tongue, those sweet noises coming out of his mouth and, moreover, those lips going to kiss and lick and suck the skin of his neck while the man from above kept holding onto his waist, Dave didn’t take long in moving away from the kisses on his neck because of the sensations of all of this. Klaus smiled under him with pride when he noticed the effect it was having on Dave.

“ _Bonjour, monsieur..._ ”

God, Klaus and his impressive ability to make every situation a little bit embarrassing and, even despite the embarrassment he was feeling a bit, he loved him for that too much.

“Klaus...” he just muttered, stroking the other man’s cheek, trying to recover his breath, feeling his lips like they were overused.

“It works.” he hummed with amusement. “We’ll have to take advantage, won’t we?” Dave didn’t know what to say, so he leaned in for another kiss, slower and sensual, more about exploring. They split after a while and they were out of their breaths again. “What do you want, Davey?”

“I...” Dave took a deep breath to speak properly. “If it isn’t too much...” Fuck, his voice was dry and rough, but he couldn’t help it, not when Klaus was stroking his neck and his lower stomach all at once with the hot tip of his fingers. “If it’s not much, you could work me up.”

Klaus winked at him fast.

“Got it.”

They kissed once more; more heated, more passionate, more too much. Both taking turns to bite the lips of one another before getting to battle with their mouths, the tips of their tongues feeling like fire. It was close to being out of their hands. Klaus got to slide his hands under Dave’s shirt and stroke his back, digging his nails but not aggressively. Dave got to work his mouth over Klaus’ shoulder after pushing his neon yellow shirt a little bit aside, enough to taste his skin, bites included, and it was very worth it because of the extremely sweet sounds Klaus was letting go with ease.

“Klaus...”

“Hmm?” he hummed in the middle of a moan.

“You...” Dave kissed his lips briefly before speaking his mind. “I mean, maybe I could give pleasure to you. You’re the one who deserves it after going through so much.”

Klaus frowned for a bit and, then, he smiled a little.

“I know I deserve it. But you too.” he said. “Besides! I wanna suck _the whole length of you_ , David.”

Dave’s pupils expanded and felt his crotch burning in desire.

“Yeah?” he said with a rough voice, lips parted especially seeing Klaus licking his lips, leaving them gleaming. “You want that?”

“I do.”

They kissed again deeply, more desperate, more connected, but it didn’t last too much. Before anything, Klaus moved away a little to point his hand towards the door and lock it with his powers before poor Luther could open it accidentally and see something else and, then, he fell back on the mattress and kept kissing the man over him. Not much later, he put his hands on Dave’s back again and stroked him, not aggressive but not softly, more like with close to being needy. Later, he moved his hands from his back to his stomach, still under Dave’s shirt, and caressing the skin of his lower belly, which made him moan. Klaus, the soft bastard, smiled widely in the middle of the kiss, being proud of how wrecked the other guy was given his aroused, risen crotch.

“That’s my man. Attaboy.”

Still under him, Klaus moved his mouth a bit away and kept caressing his abs until he was losing patience and decided to go straight to unbutton and unzipping Dave’s pants, but he didn’t put them down immediately, Klaus just started to rub his hand _right there_ , splitting his fingers to dig better and take care of his balls even over the underwear.

Damn.

“Klaus...” he ground his lips and took a desperate breath between his teeth at the rub in his balls. He tried to endure some time, but... damn, Klaus knew what he was doing. It reminded him of their first time. By then, Dave already knew how many past sexual experiences the other man had had, including _guys_ , so he had been really nervous because Klaus knew a lot and he didn’t know anything about how to give pleasure to a guy. “Come on, please...”

“Not losing time, huh?”

“No.”

Klaus chuckled blissfully and went straight to lowering his underpants. Dave helped by lifting his hips a little bit, in a comfortable position, because once the man under him did that, he finished taking his length out. Dave gasped at the skin on skin contact, so he rested his forehead against Klaus’, who was looking down at his crotch with lust.

“Hey, I missed you.”

Dave laughed at the biggest ridiculous comment the other guy could say right in that moment. He knows that Klaus wasn’t saying that to _him_.

They kissed again and, after only a few moments, Dave was already shivering at the superb strokes Klaus was giving to his swelled muscle.

“Klaus... Please...”

Klaus huffed a laugh.

“Eager...”

Dave nodded.

“Only for you.”

They looked at each other and he noticed how Klaus’ eyes got bigger out of lust. With that, Klaus was moving in a matter of seconds and got away. Dave lied on his back and Klaus immediately got closer to his body, stimulating his length again. The man now lying on the mattress moaned when Klaus rubbed his fingers over the tip for spreading his fluid, making the top gleaming, deliciously shiny, and Dave focused on the way Klaus licked his lips.

Klaus kept stroking him. Dave tried to endure a little bit more, but some minutes went on and he was on edge again, panting, trying to be as quiet as possible. It was really hard when the other man was stuck to his body, sucking the skin of his neck _terribly slow_ and still letting go his damned little sounds out of his delicious mouth as the strokes continued.

And before the man spoke, Klaus read through the expressions of his face and started to move, first, kissing his abs by lifting his shirt, then, kissing his belly and, finally, his left hand still holding his length as his right hand holding his hips. He then directed his head closer and stuck his tongue for tasting the shiny, yummy fluids in the trunk of his member.

Dave lost himself.

He had to bite a little his own right hand for softening his own sounds, while his left hand went to stroke the back of Klaus’ neck with tenderness, something Klaus didn’t have much right in that moment, especially when he was lifting his suckings from the now-vertical trunk to the top before wrapping it with his entire mouth and bowing his head. Dave moaned out loud, so he had to bite his own hand again while the man over his hips was sucking him deep.

Having been a long time since they did anything like this, it didn’t take much to put him at the verge of pleasure. Somehow, in the middle of this, a brief memory from their time together in Vietnam appeared into Dave’s mind. They were eating hot dogs alone in a motel room, but before they could do anything naughty, they were starving, so they ordered hot dogs before locking the door. Klaus set aside the taste-less, disgusting bread, just took the entire sausage and, before he could put it into his mouth for eating it, Dave spoke.

_“Wow.” he had muttered, a bit impressed. “The whole sausage? Are you sure about that?”_

_Klaus had shrugged._

_“No big deal. I don’t have gag reflexes.”_

Crap.

As Dave realized right there, in Klaus’ bedroom in a year he couldn’t begin to understand, now it made sense why he was taking him in his mouth perfectly, with no problem. Not that Klaus hadn’t sucked him before, he just didn’t realize until that moment. Dave couldn’t, however, concentrate more of his attention into any more memories because Klaus was going each time faster and deeper; never exaggerated, never hurried, but always passionate, passion which made both shudder and which made Dave realize and basking at how the top of his member was hitting against the beginning of Klaus’ throat. Like this, it was completely easy for him to lose his mind, to lose control over his body, to tighten his inner thighs while thrusting his hips.

After a while, it was close to being out of their hands again.

“Klaus...” he ground his teeth, stopping his thrusts just for that moment. Klaus didn’t stop, he just decreased speed. The way he hummed around his length and pressed his tongue on his trunk made him shiver. “I’m close...”

Still with his member inside of his mouth, Klaus looked straight at his eyes and the bastard seemed to smile with his eyes, a little bit of satisfaction decorating his features. He immediately went back to a faster rhythm of his sucking, so Dave went back to his thrusts. Each time deeper, more needy, more of his tip hitting against Klaus’ throat, more too much. In fact, Dave was so to the limit that he couldn’t help but choking Klaus from the back of his neck, which made him moan around his length and go faster, which also made Dave tightening his eyelids, bite his hand and curling his toes as he got to come down Klaus’ throat when Dave reached his climax.

Damn. The aftermath was _so_ delicious, leaving his limbs all tingly. Once he was finished, Klaus swallowed practically everything with a deliciously hot hum and moved his head away to take deep breaths, so was Dave, taking deep breaths for breathing normally. He looked at the ceiling, barely illuminated by the lamp from the nightstand and the lights of the walls. He closed his eyes, noticing how Klaus sighed, kept his member inside his pants and moved closer to where he was, at the same eye level. Klaus didn’t say anything, like he had half expected. He just lied on his arms and kissed the tip of his nose and his jaw.

“God, Klaus...”

He chuckled.

“Not good enough?”

Dave opened his eyes with tenderness. The other man was hiding his smile on his chest.

“You kidding?” Dave whispered, stroking his curls. “Nah, not a big deal.” he said with sarcasm in contrast to how wrecked his voice was. “It wasn’t even good...”

“Huh, do you want me to do better? Because I can.”

Damn.

“Uh... Good to know.”

On the right of the central picture of their _wall of memories_ , there are four smaller pics (two over two) about their several trips to New York City when they moved to New Jersey. The first one, winter, the second, spring, the third, summer and the fourth one, the trip of fall.

Under the central picture, there are two smaller pics and one smaller under the two, like an upside down pyramid. The one alone and under the other two is when the entire gang visited their house in New Jersey for the first time, which happened over six months since they moved away, around two years ago.

They decided they wanted to move away from the city because they both felt they needed to start from scratch in their life together, something new, and the first option was Canada. Canada, however, felt _too_ _ideal, too perfect_ for them, too far away from family and friends, so no Canada. They didn’t think about the south of the country either. Their two next options were San Francisco or New York City. They saw the pros and cons of both. They discussed it over and over again, they even argued once. At the end, neither of those cities seemed right for what they wanted until Bopha came to Luther’s and said out loud _“what about New Jersey?”_

New Jersey is not New York City, but it’s in the middle of having a house in the suburbs and taking your kids to a good school or that’s what they saw online before renting a truck and moving out.

They both loved it. New Yorkers always talk shit about New Jersey and that won’t change, but they supposed those were mere myths. When they arrived, the people from their neighborhood were (and are) loud but nice. Before going there, they called a lot of agencies before moving away and got a good estimate from a little house in Ridgewood. The garden was (and is) big enough to take advantage of it. There is one main bedroom and three minor ones of medium size, one of which they use as an office and another one as an attic to keep tools, summer clothes they're keeping. Another one of those bedrooms, if they’re lucky today with Miss Graham, will be used as a bedroom for a kid.

Before coming downstairs, Klaus stares at the stairs and, because of the fact he is feeling nostalgic today, he briefly remembers the night they all watched together the revealing tape from Zero Earth. That lasted a lot... or it felt like that.

After they came out of that TV room, as the others kept a tensed silence and Five was trying to put in order his chaotic thoughts, Dave took Klaus’ hands and set him aside. Klaus couldn’t take it anymore. He broke down in silence and rested his forehead on the other man’s shoulder. The guy just shushed him and stroked his back.

“Crap...” he stuttered quietly. He moved away, but not too much; enough to clean his new tears. “Shit. I-I’d die if I had to kill _you_.” Dave didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even a newbie to magic and worlds he didn’t begin to understand. “I mean, it’s _you_...” Dave didn’t give a shit what happened to both of them two days ago, something that caused them to argue, so he decided to leave a kiss on his lips. When they parted, Klaus was confused. “Uh.” he mumbled. “Just like that. After what happened on Sunday?”

Dave bowed his head for an only second, thinking about what to say.

“You needed this.”

“I also _needed_ you when you were being distant after I kissed that woman’s cheek.” Klaus frowned. Dave deviated his eyes in guilt. He couldn’t avoid how he was feeling every time someone was being noticeably flirting with the man he loved (and loves), but the guilt of his distance was awful. He couldn’t help feeling this way when Klaus could only have eyes for him in Vietnam. “She gave us homemade cookies. Dave, she’s a lesbian. And she’s married!”

He didn’t know that, but that doesn’t justify his behaviour.

Dave took his hands again and sighed.

“Yeah. I know it was wrong of me to be distant.” he responded. “But I can’t help feeling this way whenever a stranger is flirting with you, not anymore.”

Klaus’ face fell down.

“What do you mean?” he gulped with fear. “You... You wanna...?” Damn. It wasn’t the best moment to talk about this on this Earth, but Pandora’s box was open already. Klaus ground his teeth. This conversation was coming anytime soon. Now or never. Any of the two had to say that in that moment as much as they were hating having that conversation. Klaus sobbed and shook his head in denial. “Do you wanna... move on? _Rest_?”

Dave looked back at him. He didn’t take long before shaking his head.

“No. Not anytime you’re on Earth.”

Klaus melted. He’s just out of this world to him.

“Okay.” Klaus stuttered. He still needed to know something else. It was perfectly okay for Dave to stay around as much time as he wanted, but that didn’t mean Klaus had to stay with him. “Stay how much time you want to.” He took a deep breath and cleaned his almost-coming-out tears before speaking. “But... do you want me to?”

Dave didn’t understand. He just held the side of his neck softly.

“If I want you to... what?”

Klaus gulped deep. Before speaking his own mind, he needed to know what Dave thought.

“If you stay as a ghost...” he began to say with a dry voice. “... that doesn’t mean I get to _stay_ by your side.” Dave froze in place. Klaus resisted the urge of hugging him like an octopus. They needed to talk about this first. “So tell me...” Klaus tightened his eyelids before looking back at the other man. “... Do you want me to date more people?”

Dave took longer in answering. He fixed his eyes on his own, trying to keep quiet or speaking the truth, having an inner battle against himself. Stupid Dave just thinking he was holding Klaus back because he was dead. Klaus knew perfectly that he didn’t want him to date anyone else, but if he lied, that was enough for Klaus to leave Dave for real.

After a while, Dave cleared his throat, took a deep breath and shook his head.

“No.”

Klaus couldn’t help but chuckle out of relief and sighed deeply, the tension leaving his body.

“Okay.” he muttered back.

“Do you want to date...?”

“No, no.” Klaus hurried to say with honesty, shaking his head. Dave smiled in relief too. “No. I want _you_. Only you.”

They both sighed out of relief once more and kissed, intertwining his lips sensually before splitting, returning with the gang and later confronting Trinity about the truth.

He goes downstairs.

He leaves the papers on the kitchen counter, goes to their open kitchen and washes his hands before preparing a light snack for Miss Graham. She’s a vegan, so he starts preparing a quick salad with olives. He hears the glass doors from the back of the living room being open and the curtains being dragged.

“We need more vegetable disinfectant.” the other man says closing the glass doors. It’s cold outside. “Should we turn on the fireplace?”

“Nah.” Klaus says, opening the fridge. He hears as Dave takes off his boots before walking around the living room and leaving his garden tools next to the sofa. “The heating is on already. Crap! We have no black olives!”

“I can go to the grocery store if you want.” he mentions, walking to the kitchen.

“Nope.” he says, taking out the can of green olives from the fridge and closing it. “You worked hard already.”

“It’s just a garden.”

“That’s enough.” he insists. While Klaus is cutting the olives in little pieces, the other man gets closer from behind and wraps him with his two arms, leaving a kiss on his neck. Klaus melts. “Hey... I’m cooking.”

“Sorry.” Dave muffles into his neck. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

“No.” Klaus chuckles. “You’re not bothering at all. But not _right in front of my salad_!”

Dave rolls his eyes and cringes because of that current-century reference. He still stays close to the other man and starts setting the table of the kitchen; just the tablecloth; three glasses of water, three forks and small dishes for the salad. Klaus leaves the bowl of salad in the center and hugs him.

“I like those pants.”

“Really?” Klaus says flirty. “I like that jacket.” He gets even closer to Dave and caresses the brown fabric. “Makes me wanna see underneath.”

“You already know what’s underneath.” he responds sweetly, taking both of his wrists. “Do you have our marriage certificate?”

Their wedding was celebrated highly. In November of 2021, Dave finished taking a shower, dressed up and went to watch TV downstairs with Klaus. They had dinner and cuddled on the sofa together while watching a movie. The lights of the ceiling were off and the only lights were: the TV broadcasting the film _In Time_ and the fireplace. Dave was interested in it, but he couldn’t miss the way Klaus rested his head on his shoulder and fell asleep in a matter of seconds. Dave carefully put a blanket over them and Klaus tenderly cuddled closer in his sleep and smiled too. Dave melted; watching the light of the TV on his fair skin, his eyelashes moving in his dream, sighing from time to time, moving under the blanket. The TV’s function was even pointless at that moment.

Dave couldn’t help but squeeze Klaus’ hand and put his lips on his temple, giving little kisses under the light of the fire, until Klaus woke up with a chuckle.

“You’re more tender than usual.” he whispered sleepily, giving him a kiss. “What is it?”

Not even Dave knew what was going on. He just squeezed his hand again and stroked Klaus’ cheek with the back of his hand.

“Just thinking... how far we’ve come.” he confessed. “Are you okay?”

Klaus didn’t understand, but then he did.

“ _Oh_. Of course.” Klaus responded. “I’m fucking great. And you?”

“More than great.” he smiled softly. “There’s no other person in the world better for me to spend the rest of my life with.” Klaus’ eyes shone with a little bit of hope. “You must be thinking what I want to talk about, aren’t you?” Klaus got even closer and nodded a little open-mouthed. “Fine.” Dave kissed the tip of his nose and uncovered the blanket. “Good night.”

Dave stood up and went upstairs. Klaus frowned and froze in place.

Two weeks later, Klaus couldn’t handle it anymore. Anything Dave did, anytime he got closer to him to open a drawer, to kneel to tie his goddamn shoes, he thought he’d propose, but he never did. Dave works at a convenience store by loading and unloading products, so he’d be out from 9 am to 3 pm. At half past nine, Klaus took a bus to New York City and spent the morning there, having a walk around there, having lunch and buying a ring. It was a silver ring with two tiny navy blue pieces with the shapes of drops rounding a small, white diamond. It cost around one hundred dollars. He smiled, kept the ring inside a leather little box and came back home.

Once he came back, Dave was already setting the table. Klaus kissed him before leaving his bag on the kitchen counter, going upstairs to wash his face and returning. They were preparing lunch together and, even with the ring bought around midday, he couldn’t handle it anymore. It wasn’t the most romantic moment, but they were prepared.

“Davey, could you pass me my keys?”

“Sure.” he said and went to open his bag. Klaus smiled when he saw him stopping his movements when he saw what was inside. Dave frowned and took out the little box, looking at Klaus in confusion. Klaus just smiled and got closer with his own hands joined behind his back. “Klaus... What is this?”

“Nothing.” he shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Just... a ring?”

Dave opened it and took it carefully with his two hands, admiring it. He smiled and looked at him. Dave sighed, looked at him seriously and started to bend on one knee. Klaus opened his mouth in disbelief and tried to stop him.

“What!?” he exclaimed in disbelief, trying to take the ring but not being able to. “No! No way. It’s my ring!”

“I know.” Dave teased, still shaking in Klaus’ arms trying to kneel on one knee. “That’s I’m giving it to you.”

“No! I mean, my ring to _you_!” They shook between each other’s arms between complaints and chuckles and, somehow, Klaus ended up over Dave on the floor. They laughed and Klaus rested his forehead against his. “You’re unbelievable...”

“You _are_.” Dave muttered, stroking his cheek. Klaus’ eyes got wet and his breath stuttered. “And that’s why I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” Klaus sighed before opening his eyes and looking at the other man with the same adoration he was receiving back. “Klaus. Will you marry me?”

Klaus nodded frantically and hid his face in his neck before shedding tears. Still on the floor, they cuddled under the lights of their open kitchen in their New Jersey little suburbs house.

They immediately got on with it. Thanks to their savings, they spent around twenty thousand dollars and, five months later, April 24 was the big day. The group had come to New Jersey one week earlier, to catch up, to talk, to help with the last details from the wedding.

The wedding was outdoors but next to a warm inn with good sights of New York City, so the photos were perfect. The sunset behind all of the fifty guests are is perfect, so it ended up being the picture of the top left from the upside down pyramid under the central picture of _the wall of memories_. The pic of the right corner of the mini upside down pyramid is Klaus holding one of his first awards he won in a painting contest.

Dave’s best man was a good friend he made in New York City, Daniel, which reminded all of them of the telepathic man that died helping them prevent the apocalypse the second time around. And, taking everyone by surprise, Klaus chose Luther as his best man. Luther was always by his side and never gave up on him in that horrible state he was for three months about three years ago and he has always put his feet on the ground, not the way Dave does, but he managed to keep him as sane as possible until Dave came back. In exchange, Diego was the wedding photographer, which saved some disasters along the celebration, like noticing in time Allison's purple dress was getting burned. And, of course, they missed Hazel, Trinity, Five, Vanya and Ben right there, sharing some laughs, but one of them was dead, one of them was in Zero earth making a life, one of them was in Zero Earth making a life too, one of them had already went back into her physical form three months before the wedding and one of them was gone forever. They put a pic of Ben on a chair in his honor. Oh, Mark and Laura had been so sweet because, when Vanya went back that year, they had bought her a violin; Luther’s idea. Even though, the presence of the five of them was there still.

They were dancing their first slow song as a married couple, _Unchained Melody_ , by The Righteous Brothers. Dave was holding his waist and Klaus was rounding his neck and resting his head on his shoulder. The other man was wearing a dark, sexy tuxedo with a lime green tie and, as it was expected, Klaus opted for a white jacket, black pants, _but_ a white crop top with elegant laces as a shirt and the lime green bow on his neck.

It was perfect.

Klaus smiles.

“I have it.” he says, pointing at the papers over the kitchen counter. “Everything’s in a folder, just in case. I’m cautious.”

“Just with whatever you want.” Dave taunts. “But I love it.”

“I know.” he flirts. The bell of the house is buzzing and it startles Klaus. “Miss Graham!” They take a deep breath and have a brief kiss. “Good luck.”

“Good luck to you too.”

On their way to the entrance hall, there are four pictures of four people. From left to right, they’re Ben, Five, Trinity and Vanya. Klaus got to make a photo of her, she was eating pizza and she doesn’t look so good in the pic, but it’s something. Ben’s pic was taken when he was tangible and they were playing cards at Luther’s the night Trinity came back after her one-month long mission before they watched what happened to Zero Earth; it was when neither of them could sleep. In the middle of that game, Ben spitted _“I always win at cards, you’re definitely not gonna miss me if I were gone.”_ Of course, he was joking, but that sentence hurts now. It’d be falling short saying that they all miss him everyday.

The picture of Five is a close up one, one of the few things they could rescue from the destroyed Academy from this timeline. It wasn’t exactly _Five_ , but it’s more as a reminder. And Trinity, well, it’s not entirely pretty seeing Trinity eating an entire pizza by herself because of the yellow dying star inside asking her to eat at least seven times a day, but it’s Trinity in her element. She must be eating like a normal person in Zero Earth now that she doesn’t have powers.

Vanya’s pic is a close up one too; they were in their old hideout from the week before the apocalypse and she had just got a braid made by Allison; she looks beautiful in that one.

They both take a deep breath at the same time before opening the door. Miss Graham is a very nice woman in her thirties, beautiful, blonde, green eyes and a suit that makes everyone understand she’s in her work and that nothing’s going to stop her. However, Miss Graham was said to be deceiving. Even if she smiled widely at the couples she interviewed and said to them that the interview was perfect, some of the couples could be denied the right of adoption in that agency the very next day. If there’s something she sees or anything they do, it’s over. They would have to look in another agency.

“Hello!” she says in a southern accent. Klaus and Dave say hello too and let her inside. Dave takes her coat and puts in on the coat stand. “It’s cold outside.”

“The heating is on, don’t worry.” Klaus comments kindly, rubbing his hands out of nervousness and facing her. “Let’s go to the kitchen, right here.” They walk back to the kitchen with the woman and they sit on the chairs. As Klaus predicted, Graham immediately takes a fork and takes a bite of the salad. “Well...” he stutters, so he clears his throat and relaxes under Dave’s closeness. They sit in front of her. “How was your day so far?”

“Uh, horrible traffic jam.” she complains, then drinking water. “And I had to drive terribly slow for not slipping.” She takes a deep breath and gets more serious. She takes her expensive pen. The couple take each other’s hands under the table. “So... Let’s talk.” She takes some sheets and reads them. “The first question we have to take into account is the couple, the parents.”

“David Katz.”

“Klaus Hargreeves-Katz.”

“Okay.” Miss Graham writes their names on the right spaces. “Family?”

“I have no siblings... and my parents died three years ago.” Dave says.

The infraworld is a mysterious place they’re never going to understand. Once a person dies, it goes to that place and they’re somehow able to be conjured into any year of history by necromancers, as these people want or can, also depending on how powerful a necromancer is. It’s been three years since he’s in the present, so Hazel (the copy) wrote _dead parents and no siblings_ in his fake ID he did when he came back to life. They won’t stop being amazed by the many things Hazel can achieve.

This Hazel is still talking to them, but he keeps his distance, especially trying to have a normal life with Agnes.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Graham says, writing that info in the sheets. Dave frowns for one second. He misses his parents, but not enough to leave him out of sleep at night, not when the last thing they said to him was _do something useful for us and protect your country_ before he was sent to Vietnam. “And you?”

Klaus thinks briefly.

“My parents are dead too.” he says with an uncomfortable chuckle. “Like two of my brothers and one of my sisters.” They had to reluctantly count as that, considering Five and Vanya are dead in front of normal people, despite they’re really not. Ben is the one who’s gone for real. “But on Earth, I have two brothers and one sister.”

Graham looks at them and grinds her teeth. Klaus’ hand trembles.

“Yeah... I’m not sure it’s okay for a kid to have an environment with half of your families dead, you know?”

Dave gulps deep.

“Their deaths are not our fault.” he says in a neutral tone. “I think the environment is okay. We have close people that the kid could consider as aunts or uncles.”

“Oh! What are their names?”

“Bopha, Gonzalo, Lizzie, Hazel, Agnes, Daniel, and Misses Pemberton.” Klaus answers. “Pemberton lives downstreet and she always makes us cakes. She’s around sixty, she could be like a grandma for the kid!”

Luckily, Graham chuckles.

“I guess.” Graham nods. “These people you’ve just mentioned, do they have something special in any way?”

“Daniel lives in New York City.” Dave says. “And Bopha and Luther are dating.”

Oh, god. That couple didn’t take as long as Five and Trinity, but they did it too. Luther thought Bopha didn’t deserve him and Bopha was afraid of having another commitment, a little trauma from her previous boyfriend. But thanks to each other, they've grown up a lot as a couple, and as individuals. When Klaus left, Bopha went to live with Luther.

“Okay.” she says. She doesn’t know much about the Hargreeves, just that they’re a famous adopted family. The less she knows, the better, just in case. “All of this was the first step. Now, the second one’s all about you two. How’s your health?”

Klaus quickly takes the folder of the kitchen counter and hands it to her before sitting again.

“Your health looks great.” she reads. They had to go to the doctor too and being tested their blood in order to prove they have no diseases or any viruses. “Klaus used to be thinner, but now he’s better.” When they finished moving to New Jersey, Klaus weighted himself and turned out to have lost around ten pounds. Dave immediately put him in a healthy diet specifically to gain weight. Now his knees are not that sharp and his waist is not that thin. _More flesh to squeeze_ , Dave usually taunts when they’re horny. “I also wanna talk about something that wasn’t in the things mentioned in the form you filled in together.” Fuck. Klaus squeezes Dave’s hand and shivers. There’s the part he fears the most. “Which is your state of mind in general?” Klaus thinks about his state three years ago, but also the nightmares he still has. The nightmares are never going away, but of course, Dave is always right there for him. “David?”

“Well,” he sighs, deciding it's the best thing to tell the truth. “we both have PTSD from the war.”

Graham frowns, but not angry, just in shock.

“Oh, you... could you explain that to me?”

In Dave’s new ID they had to write about it too. Hazel wrote that he had PTSD, which wasn’t a lie. He doesn’t have as many nightmares as Klaus, but he still has them, around once in a month.

“We met in the Iraq War,” Klaus breathes. The only lie is the Iraq War thing instead of Vietnam. “in 2011, the last year of that conflict. I was twenty two and he was twenty five. I know it’s awful raising a kid with both of us having been in a war! But...” He stutters and strokes his own sleeves. Graham reads through the expressions of his face and his husband is attentive. “... think of this as the next step into our lives. We want to live at peace, as a family.”

Graham freezes, leaving both men in tension. Then, she takes a deep and shrugs.

“Fine.” she says, defeated. They both have to avoid sighing out of relief. “As long as you handle together your PTSD attacks without hurting the child.” They nod together. No way they’re going to let that happen. “We’ll be attentive to that PTSD in the first tests of the first weeks with the child living here. Now, anything else I should know about your sanity?”

“Does crop tops obsession count?” Klaus says and Miss Graham chuckles. “No, I don’t think there’s anything else.”

“Okay. Are you planning to have pets?”

“Two cats.” Klaus answers. “A _burmese_ and a _sphynx_ , two very friendly breeds.” He takes a deep breath. “We don’t want the kid to get ill or something because of the sand and the health of these pets, so the cats are our responsibility despite how much the child loves the pets.”

“Good. Is there a specific way you’re planning to raise your future child or...?”

“Strict support.” Dave answers. “And positive reinforcement.”

“Oh, I’m _so_ glad when parents tell me that.” she confesses. “Most of them say, _with the love the children deserve_ , which of course they do, but some of them end up raising a spoilt child. Are you planning to adopt more children?”

“One or two.” Klaus says with a hidden smile. “Depending on our jobs.” In the form they had to fill in to be given this interview, Klaus had to write he’s working as an art teacher for teenagers in an academy and Dave at the convenience store. Dave is currently looking for another job and he’s on the good way; he likes photography. On the other side, the art academy is private and gives him a rather high pay and this convenience store has original products that are often expensive. After two very rough years in art courses, Klaus became a teacher for being one of the best at pen art. He didn’t think about joining a state high-school because he wanted to teach to people who wanted to learn art on their own. Still, Dave sells some of the fruits and vegetables he grows in their garden, so there are three ways of winning money in their home. Besides, by being a photographer he’ll even earn more money. “But for the moment, just one.”

“Perfect.” Miss Graham hisses, concentrated on what she’s writing. She stops and keeps her sheets on her folders. “We’re finished, gentlemen. Care to take me on a house tour?”

The three of them stand up and the couple introduces the house to Miss Graham. They start on the first floor, going to the entrance hall, the open kitchen to the right and the living room/dining room on their left. The glass doors are at the back, welcoming the one hundred square yards garden with crops, a couple of bushes and one lemon tree.

The second/last floor is the bedrooms. The main bedroom and the other three; one for the future kid and the other two for their stuff. There are two bathrooms; one small inside the main bedroom and a common bathroom for the entire level. Graham likes the house better than she likes _them_ , but she seems content with the interview. So are they, even when she leaves with a grin and takes her car to go, even if they stay on the porch for ten minutes, holding hands and seeing as the sky starts to get cloudy, a signal of possible rains.

“Do you think it was okay?”

Dave looks at Klaus when he asks that and squeezes his hands, both rings touching.

“I think it was really good.” he responds with honesty. “Graham is said to be deceitful, but the interview was fine.”

“What if the PTSD thing doesn’t convince her and she exaggerates that to the agency...?” Klaus scratches his head with doubt, something he usually does frantically after having a rough nightmare. The Iraq War thing was included in his files too, but luckily, their PTSD attacks haven’t been particularly rough enough to physically hurt the other or to be hurt, something positive the agency must have noticed already because, otherwise, they wouldn’t even have been given the interview. “What if we’re having an illusion about all of this?”

“You don’t wanna adopt anymore?”

Klaus looks straight at him and smiles with honesty.

“Of course I want.” he answers with a chuckle but for real. “But, _you know_ , doubts will occasionally visit me forever.”

“I know.” Dave nods. “But you remember what we learned from Freewill?”

He does remember.

It was in June 2020, when Klaus was finishing the first year in his art course, which made him be under a lot of pressure, which used to make him more tired and more emotional. He remembers they were involved in a small mission to help Second Earth to get better to stop their monsters. The magicians from this other multiverse had managed to _raise_ a very similar place to their old house. They were back in Second Earth’s _new_ Academy, which brought them all memories, from Five, the truth that hurt them, Trinity and the last place on Earth Ben was in before vanishing from existence forever. It was tough to see Second Klaus there because he turned out to be that Sigmund guy they had bumped into, as tough as seeing Second _Dave_ as a ghost. 

One day, they were talking to their other selves and they had a lot of doubts. Their own Five stopped the monster by showing how much he loves Trinity, but without Trinity, how was Second Five going to do that? Dying?

Talking about Second Five, he protested and expressed how much they weren’t making any progress, so he took a forbidden book from the highest shelves and made the spell, causing a noise over the Academy. Before Second Luther reprimanded him for being so impulsive, there was a noise in the entrance hall, so the ten of them (Second Vanya turned out to _ascend_ as well) went downstairs and stopped frozen in their places, when a guy with dark skin, white suit with purple interrogation signs and a top hat smiled widely when he saw them. He literally looked out of that world.

“Prime and Second!” he just said extending his arms. “Welcome to me!”

They didn’t know what to do or what to say, so there was a heavy silence.

“Who are you?” Prime Luther dared to ask.

“Oh, my, my.” he chuckled. “My name is Freewill! I worked with the Reginalds from Prime to Seventh Earth because they asked me desperately what was going to happen in their worlds.” They froze again. “You know you’re gonna prevent the monsters from this Earth too, right? Then, why the hell did you summon me!?” he screamed with anger.

“We needed answers.” Second Allison justified, but the way Freewill just _was_ was imposing, scared, gave respect to them. “How are we gonna stop the monsters?”

“Oh, my, my...” Freewill echoed. “That’s something you won’t know until the moment of truth.”

“Not even a goddamn clue?” Prime Klaus spitted, more uncertain than angry. “Anything?”

Freewill stared at him with an illegible expression.

“Prime Klaus, right?” Klaus shivered. “Huh. You look angry, but you’re as doubtful as everyone else, you’ve always been... and you know that.” Klaus stepped back at Freewill’s hurtful truth. Even Second Dave was offended by that. “Because, no matter how much you’re happy, doubts will always invade you. Doubts! Death! Powers!” Klaus’ eyes got teary despite trying to remain strong, so Diego interposed in front of him and pointed at Freewill with his shuriken, which made the fucker roll his eyes. “Really, Prime Diego? You know I’m a cosmic being, right? I can’t die! All of your weapons would go through me. I’m like a ghost, but better, because I don’t depend on any saddened or any crybaby necromancer to be tangible!”

Klaus couldn’t take it anymore.

They immediately went back to Prime Earth. Klaus retreated to his room and slammed the door shut. Dave decided to leave him alone, also for thinking about himself (something good he has learned from his time since 2019) until he decided to be strong, go upstairs and knock on his door three times, softly.

“Klaus.” he stuttered, so he cleared his throat. He didn’t answer, but he did hear Klaus sob. Fuck. He must have been thinking that Freewill, this stupid cosmic entity, must be right. “Klaus. I’m going in.”

He didn’t say anything, so he softly opened his door, entered and locked it. Klaus was lying on his stomach and had his head buried in the pillow, but he still could breath despite the sobs. Dave just got closer, lied next to him and started to stroke his back, getting his head closer to his.

“So...” Klaus said with a thick voice. “That was Freewill, right...?”

Dave tried not to get his rage on Freewill and paid attention to the man that needed him. He cleared his throat.

“Klaus, before you say anything, Freewill is not right about you.”

“He knows us better than ourselves.” he bit. “He was with the Reggis and all... He knows me.”

“He knows Klaus, in general. But he doesn’t know _you_.” Dave insisted. Klaus moved his head softly dared to look at him through thin tears. Dave stroked his neck and dedicated a tender glance. “He doesn’t know your thoughts, your doubts, your fears, your mannerism, because all of those things are in your head and Freewill... you’ve just met him, but I think he doesn’t read minds.”

“Maybe he does.”

“Maybe he doesn’t.” Dave said. “And even if he did, he still doesn’t know about the emotions through those fears, those doubts. These are your experiences, only yours. His name is Freewill, not _Destiny_.”

He had him there.

Dave completely had him there, so Klaus hid his face on his neck and smiled.

“Hmmm. What would I do without you...?”

Dave chuckled and hugged him on the bed.

“Going nuts. More like, _remain_ nuts.” Once Dave said that, Klaus hit his nose with a finger softly and sighed against his chest. “I know something that can cheer you up.”

“What is it?” Klaus asked in a flirty tone. Dave just started to kiss his neck softly while his left hand was caressing his back and the right one was stroking his crotch over his shorts. Klaus chuckled in amusement. “ _Oh_. Pervy.”

“You wanna stop or...?”

Before he could finish his sentence, the man with the tight shorts took his left hand from his back and directed it to his neck. The other guy left his hand in his neck and kept stroking his groin until Klaus was moaning, so Dave pressed his hand in his neck; never harsh, not even a little strong, just pressing instead of touching. The man in front of him moaned again, so he kept pressing his throat and stroking his crotch, but before he could untie his shorts, there was a knock on the door.

“Klaus, are you okay, man?”

Klaus complained softly because of Diego’s interruption at the other side, but he cleared his already wrecked voice and opened his eyes.

“Yeah.” he said out loud. At least, they’d mistake his voice for sobs instead of something naughty, but they all knew how much Klaus and Dave did it as a ghost, even more now that he was alive again. “I’m fine.”

“I’m going back to my place, sleep well... or whatever you’re doing right now.”

Diego left, which meant they weren’t going to be interrupted anymore until Klaus went downstairs by his own.

“Are you okay?” Dave asked and the other guy laughed. “Aren’t you embarrassed? What am I saying? You’re never embarrassed.”

They kissed for a while, still the right hand on the crotch and the left one on his neck, making him moan, minutes later being needy and desperate and too much.

“Please...”

Dave obeyed.

He immediately pressed his left hand (which made Klaus shiver in pleasure) and his right one started to untie his pants. He stroked his crotch over his neon underpants for some more minutes until Klaus was panting in desperation, so Dave moved to lower his underwear and take his length. The skin on skin contact made him shiver again, especially when the other man brushed the head with his thumb to spread his shiny fluids, making it gleaming. Klaus held onto his strong arms and moved his head backwards on the mattress for the energy that went from his groin to his neck. Dave pressed his hand on his neck, melting in an intense libido because of the choking and the strokes.

It took a matter of minutes to completely wreck him, to destroy him in the good sense, to be hanging on a thread of pleasure that was making him see stars. He didn’t know something as intense as this, even more intense than a high after cocaine, could make this necessity so wanted, so delicious, so addictive. He couldn’t handle so much intensity in his needy length, the calloused and strong fingers moving frantically from the bottom to the top, squeezing his muscle, making him faint and coming back to life all at the same time. A couple of minutes later, he had to turn his head to a side to bite the pillow in order to stifle his panting as he got to come all over Dave’s hand and over the sheets.

They ended up having to wash them despite him having put them in the washing machine two days ago.

But, before that, Klaus started to breathe deeply to recover a normal breathing and open his tearful eyes; he didn’t even realize when his eyes started to do that in the middle of the process. He gave a last sigh of pleasure and satisfaction, stroked his face with his trembling hands and kept his member inside his shorts. He looked back at Dave and chuckled naughtily.

“Good?” Dave asked.

“Good.”

The night wasn’t over.

It was relatively still early, so they washed themselves, went downstairs to confirm Klaus felt better and ate something light for dinner. Someone knocked the door, so Luther went to open it and he returned with Diego. They hadn’t expected him.

Diego was frowning (which was usual on him, but it was weird) and they were about to ask him, but before that, he took out something from his pocket and put it over the table, something he was sent to his house. A small, white envelope with a purple interrogation. The front was the interrogation sign and in the back, there was something written with purple, perfect calligraphy.

_“For you, ungrateful creatures.”_

Luther, as expected, was the one who took it and opened it carefully, in case anything happened.

“Be careful.” Bopha said to him.

Luther finished opening it and took out another paper sheet, totally white from their perspective, sitting in chairs.

“A picture.”

He put it on the table.

There was a man around his thirties wearing a wedding tuxedo, smiling faintly and his arms rounded by a woman’s arm; she was wearing a white dress and her free hand was holding her wedding bouquet.

They looked happy.

There were more words at the top.

_“Their future.”_

They analyzed the womans’ face and remembered this woman is an adult-looking Trinity.

So...

“That’s Five.”

Freewill was and always will be unbelievable for them, but he apparently manages to travel around the multiverses and has got to _steal_ one of the pictures from Five and Trinity’s wedding.

Wow.

“Wow.” Allison muttered, eyes teary and smiling. “It’s... It’s weird to think they could have a normal life.”

“Maybe they didn’t.” Diego thought out loud. “Especially because they had to prevent Zero _us_ from ever existing. This must be a rest.”

“This is their future.” Luther noted. “So, they must be preventing that right now.”

However, that picture is not on _the wall of memories_ from New Jersey, it’s in Allison’s. It’s one of the most precious pictures they have, always reminding them that their departure to Zero Earth was worth it. Klaus didn’t ask for a copy because he had enough nostalgia just by looking at the four pictures of the entrance wall.

“Yeah.” he stutters. “I do remember Freewill.”

“Doubts will always come, for both of us.” Dave comments. “We just deal with it. Together.”

Klaus knows the other man has doubts too sometimes, especially when he thinks about where and when he is, so this new reality overwhelms him: sometimes in the good sense, sometimes in the bad sense. At the same time, Dave is grateful for being in this new millennium because of the fact that he’s been able to think about himself. Back in 1968, he couldn’t do that because his love for Klaus used to blind him, something he confessed when they met in the infraworld. But now, in 2022, he’s been getting a lot better at having some alone time and appreciating himself.

Klaus squeezes his hand again, being proud of his husband and, especially, proud about himself. Doubts sometimes are strong but, as Five and Trinity showed to the interdimensional monsters three years ago, love (for one another but also for themselves) is stronger because love is the best they can do.

“Together.”

Two weeks later, they haven’t got any news from the adoption agency, not even a notification saying if they’re being considered for being on the adoption queue. They re-read once and over again their email addresses in case they wrote them wrong, but they’re correct. After a couple of days, they can’t handle the wait anymore and decide to call. They answer after a few minutes.

 _“Yes?”_ a man with a husky voice asks.

“Yeah, hello, I’m David Katz.” Dave greets carefully. Klaus is right by his side on the phone trying not to scratch his hands. “Exactly sixteen days earlier, we had an interview with Carla Graham and, well, the agency hasn't told us anything yet, not even a message that we’re being considered.”

 _“It’s your first child, right?”_ the man spits, but not aggressive. Is it really that evident? Maybe they’re being a little bit paranoid. _“The agency always takes a long time with newbie parents. It takes around... three weeks. Wait more.”_

“Oh, okay.” Dave responds, knowing his husband is listening. They’re less worried. “Thank you, sir.”

The call is over. They can’t do anything else, just wait until the call comes. They keep doing their normal life, even after it’s been one month since they had the interview with Miss Graham. But then, a Sunday morning, the phone rings and Klaus jumps to take it. Dave is working, so he has to handle the panic on his own.

“Yeah?” he says out of breath.

 _“Hello, sir.”_ says an English man, more polite than the other one, that reminds him of the stupid fake accents Hazel used to make. _“I’m_ _Oliver Taylor_ _. I’m calling from the_ New Families _adoption agency. We just wanted to let you now that you and your spouse have been granted the right of a place in the queue of adoption.”_

Klaus’ eyes get bigger, realization dawns on him after a while and he jumps in bliss. He can’t believe this is happening. He doesn’t want to have illusions, they need to be completely sure about this. After some seconds of celebration, Klaus remembers Mister Taylor is there.

“W-What do you mean, Mister Taylor?” he stutters, holding onto the phone. “We’re... We’re in the queue of your agency for adopting a child?”

 _“Correct, sir.”_ the man states and Klaus starts jumping a bit and doing victory dance and it’s so jumpy that scares poor _Mario_. He has to come back to the phone after stroking the ball of gray fur. _“If you’re so polite of making a possible update of the data of yours and your husband’s, we’ll be glad to keep in touch to warn you whenever there’s an available child in the queue as soon as possible.”_

“Yeah!” he can’t help it, so he immediately covers his mouth, chuckles and clears his throat. “Yes, I mean, yeah.”

Klaus tells the man their data are still the same, so the call finishes. Klaus immediately calls his husband.

 _“Yeah?”_ Dave asks. He must be in his break time.

“We did it!” he immediately says in celebration. “We got a spot in the queue!”

He notices as Dave can hesitate at the other side of the phone. He must be adorable right now.

 _“W-Wha... I mean, I...”_ He takes a deep breath. _“Klaus, are you sure?”_

“Yeah!” he exclaimed and he has to hold back his tears again, so he raises his arms in celebration despite the other man can’t see him. “We’re on the queue!”

The realization dawns on the other guy and Klaus hears him chuckle with happiness.

 _“Crap...”_ he stutters, sighing. _“Well, K-Klaus, my break is almost over, but we’ll talk when I’m home, ‘kay?”_

“Okay!” he stutters, not being able to stop moving, enjoying out of bliss. “See you later. Love you.”

_“Love you.”_

Klaus puts the phone in its place and smiles. He strokes the small cat they adopted one week ago, washes his hands and decides to prepare a good lunch for both of them; his favorite food is baked potatoes and Dave’s are tortellini. Cooking them homemadeis very complex, so he just makes one dish for the other guy and baked potatoes too.

Dave arrives at some minutes past four and Klaus goes immediately to hug him. They don’t split until the big realization dawns on them now that they’re physically together.

“Wow...” Klaus stutters. He has been accelerated since he received the call. Not even his husband can’t contain his surprise. They look at each other. “I mean, I know this is big news, but-you know, I mean, we’re on the _queue_ , but not _called_ for adoption, you know-”

“Klaus.” Klaus tries to relax and sits on the sofa of the living room. Dave sits close, on a chair, and takes his hand. “I know. We’re on the queue, but you already know parents are put on a big hold from then. It could take one month, yeah, but it could take around one year too. Even more.”

Klaus makes a gesture that shows pity before coming back to a more relaxed illusion.

“Yeah. I know.”

Dave kisses him and they stand up.

“It smells really good.”

“Guess.” Klaus taunts with a smile while they’re going to the kitchen.

“Hmm, no idea... Oh! Tortellini?” Klaus nods and his husband kisses him again. “I love you.”

“I wanted to make them homemade, so I just made enough for you. I know you don’t like baked potatoes too much, but I made the sauce you like.” He receives a vibration in his phone and he reads the surprising but strong message that makes him open his mouth right before he can sit. “Oh. _Oh_.”

“What?”

“Not the biggest surprise today.” he puts the phone on the table. “Diego and Patch are betrothed.”

They eat in peace, decide to watch the movie _Memento_ and they make out for the first minutes, but the movie is too interesting for them to keep doing that.

“Do you think someone like Leonard could get out of that mental stage?” Dave asks while they eat ice cream on the bench of the garden.

“If I could get out of my _sorrow_ , I bet Lenny can.”

Dave hesitates and looks at him straightforwardly.

“Klaus.”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t intend to offend you or anything, but, why don’t you call it _depression_?”

Klaus stops eating his ice cream and his eyes tremble. Dave immediately backtracks.

“ _Shit_ , I’m sorry, I-”

“Not offended.” Klaus says before the other man blames himself. He diverts his look. “Just... I don’t ignore that process of my life, just... there are things that are not _easy_ to ignore despite the time, you know?” Dave nods. “I still have nightmares of your death.”

Dave shivers.

“Really?” Klaus nods. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Klaus bows his head.

“I thought-I thought it didn’t matter, ‘cause those nightmares are not so intense anymore and not that often, over each four months... but they’re still there.” he sighs deeply. He has even forgotten about the mint-chocolate ice cream. His hand is getting cold. “I-I’m sorry for not telling you sooner.”

Dave knows Klaus needs to be grounded, even the same Klaus has told him not to backtrack on making him grounded.

“Klaus. We’re married, we have a cat and we’re on the queue for _adoption_.” he takes a deep breath before continuing. “I know all you’ve been through ‘cause I’ve seen it. But, you should tell me yourself what you’re going through. You’ve just done that, which is excellent, but... you have to do those things sooner, okay?”

Klaus nods with confidence and fixes him with a nostalgic but tender smile.

“I love you, you know?”

“I know. I love you too.”

“What would I do without you...?”

Dave puts his lips on his temple and Klaus leans into the touch.

“Something _Klaus_ , I bet. I know your way of coping with problems is not the best.”

Klaus looks straight at him and strokes the neck of his shirt.

“I’m getting cold. Wanna get inside?” His husband nods. They end up returning the ice creams to the freezer and play another TV series, a sit-com called _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ , while they play _Scrabble_.

“We’re gonna have to get used to silly sit-coms.” Dave comments, despite not considering silly the one they’re watching right now. He lets Mario get on his lap. “The kid will watch things like _The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia_ or _H20_.”

“Don’t you _dare_ to compare my lovely mermaids to Ashley Garcia.” Klaus pretends to be offended. “But the third season of _H20_ sucks. I don’t like Bella! She’s _too_ perfect.”

“You think I’m perfect.”

Klaus closes his eyes halfway, flirty.

“Just because I scream that in bed doesn’t mean it’s true.” he spits. “But I still love you. You’re closer to perfection, tho.”

Dave chuckles.

“I don’t know...” he pretends to hesitate. “You almost made me freeze when you appeared in that black dress with that lingerie...” Dave bites his lips. Klaus blinks flirtily. “Oh and the first time you suggested... the clothes things...”

“Huh! I _knew_ you liked roleplaying!”

Dave doesn’t deny it. They’re looking at each other and the view is _stunning_.

“... and you bought those clothes...” Dave strokes Klaus’ lips, which makes the other man feel an intense shiver down his spine. “... those costumes.”

“Which ones?”

“The white coat I wore and the hospital gown you wore...” he mutters, so low that Klaus can’t help but hum in pleasure. “And you pretended that you had a sore throat.”

“And you had to give me something to treat me. More like, _give it_ to me.”

“Would you shut up and kiss me?”

Klaus throws the _Scrabble_ board to the floor and puts Mario carefully on the other side of the sofa before jumping to kiss his husband. Klaus puts his body on top of the other man. They enjoy the beginning, kissing passionately and slowly, exploring and, later, it’s deepened; the tips of their tongues start caressing each other sweetly, biting the lips of one another once in a while, which makes them both want more, to desire more skin on skin contact, so Dave puts his hands over his back in order to lift his bright yellow shirt and stroke his lower back. Klaus puts his hands on his neck and strokes under the shirt around its hem, squeezing the back of his neck. They moan and sigh in the middle of the kiss, which makes the process even hotter.

Not much later, Klaus is digging his holo nails on the skin of his nape and Dave moves his hands from his lower back to the hem of Klaus’ tight pants and seeks underneath, exploring, touching his too porcelain, too soft skin that it makes him squeeze Klaus’ cheeks harder with his needy strong fingers.

“Hmm...” Klaus muffles into his mouth, making his husband tightening his eyelids a little bit stronger out of libido.

“What?” he mutters, getting a little bit away. They look into each other’s expanded pupils.

“No, _no_ , I’m okay, keep, keep, keep, keep going.”

They join their mouths deeply once more. Klaus is already feeling his groin burn in desire for the good and the perfect way the guy under him is rubbing his ass; never aggressive, but always passionate, splitting each of his fingers in Klaus’ flesh. Klaus is feeling as the other man’s crotch is asking for more, raising blissfully and asking for relief inside of him, asking for being wrapped by the ass he’s manhandling. For the time being, they’re still enjoying each other’s hands, feeling they’re in heaven.

“Yeah, babe...” Klaus mutters into the kiss, splitting to bite Dave’s lower lip softly. “Oh, babe, squeeze, squeeze _harder_...”

He does so.

Klaus moans and Dave can’t hold any longer. He goes to put his tight pants down little by little, still rubbing his cheeks or even his nipples from time to time; at least, until his pants are completely off and throws them to the floor. Klaus gets away to just put Dave’s brown pants down and is back kissing him in a matter of seconds. Both of their worked up groins are touching over their underwear, asking for feeling the fluids of the other, to rub both lengths together, and it doesn’t take too much for feeling the big necessity of more skin, more of their bodies better pressed together, so they quickly get rid of their shirts and their jackets, only remaining with their underpants.

“Fuck, I’m _so_ hard...”

And, effectively, Klaus’ groin is asking for release, for feeling the other length deep in him, deep thrusting him once and over again, to feel all of the curves and veins hot inside.

Then, before kissing again, they press their torsos together and Klaus stares at the other man, stroking exploratorily his neck and surroundings, mouth parted.

“Oh, _damn_. I’m _so_ lucky.”

Dave laughs and kisses his jaw.

“Will your mouth eventually run out of battery?”

“Nope.”

“Good.”

They kiss again, at least, for a while, adoring each other physically and emotionally, like they’ve always done and always will do; since they saw each other for the first time in that dark tent to _now_ , not even having bothered to go upstairs to be more comfortable. They’re going to leave that conversation for later.

Then, they’re both needy, close to being desperate and wanting even more, so Dave is touching again the hem of the other man’s underwear with a zebra pattern, until he lowers it and starts rubbing again, making Klaus take a deep breath in the middle of the kiss. A little bit later, they’re panting into their joined mouths and sweating, hair being a mess by sticking in all places, caressing their bodies. And, when the guy lying on his back gets impatient, he lowers the other underwear and, then, his own, staying bare naked from the bottom to the top. They hug each other again, holding close, never letting go, feeling a little bit of relief now that there are no clothes blocking their touches and always coming back to their lips.

“Do you want me to go for lube?” Dave offers with a husky voice, trying to recover from the marvelous sense he always feels when the other man is stroking his collar bone. Klaus smiles clumsily with taunt and chuckles.

“No, _please_...” he makes a pout. And the way Klaus says the last word sends him intense shivers to his length, making it even harder, making him want to bury inside already. “I don’t wanna let you go.”

And in the middle of their common libido, Dave smiles faintly.

“Good. Me neither.”

And, as they’ve been doing for the last minutes, they go back to their mouths. Just a little bit longer and they’re out of their breaths once more. Later, the man lying on his back goes to hold Klaus’ member, making him let go a delicious sound that Dave always keeps in his memory in their worked up moments. Klaus takes his length too and they start stroking each other; their tips touch sometimes, mixing their fluids.

Dave makes a ring shape with his fingers and wraps the other member, making it harder even if it can’t be tougher, surrounding it entirely with its own shiny fluid, asking for a release, especially when Dave spreads the fluid over his tip and presses _right there_. Klaus, in return, uses one of his hands to massage his balls while the other gets to concentrate its strokes up and down, also pressing the head from time to time. They don’t remain like that too much time though, given they’re equally in heat and horny, arousal touching deeply.

Because Klaus doesn’t want to split too much for lube, Dave takes care of it. The man uses one hand to search for his cheeks, seek for the middle and put one finger inside. Klaus moans and shivers from the bottom to the top, curling his toes and panting deliciously into the kiss. However, once he gets used, he’s humming into their joined mouths while the other guy is moving his middle finger, each time deeper, never aggressive, always at a good pace, but always too much, too stimulating, too good. That goddamn finger crosses his hole and arrives at the perfect spot, in the correct place, _right there_.

“Oh, _oh_...” Klaus muffles, splitting their overused lips and resting his forehead on a shoulder. “Fuck, Dave, I-I need you, come on, come on...”

Dave doesn’t hesitate anymore, something he used to do a lot in the decade he was originally born, being a little kid limited 100% by his parents, because he truly _belongs_ in this century instead, given that home is where the heart is and his heart is finally home. He has the best husband in the world, a furry tender cat that never leaves his side, a possible future kid and good friends; he doesn’t need or want more.

He doesn’t focus on that too much; he wants to leave in the now and, right now, he’s already digging another strong finger, but Klaus is begging for the next step already, so he takes out his two damp fingers. Klaus splits once more and dedicates a naughty smile before lifting his torso and sitting on Dave’s lap, his manhandled cheeks touching his length and leaving them bright and wet. Klaus revels in the wonderful feeling of Dave’s member touching his cheeks behind him.

“God...” Dave hisses softly, feeling his own desperate member right between the cheeks, hands stroking Klaus’ pale and too soft thighs. Just the texture of Klaus’ legs is enough to drive him wild, his legs are like this kryptonite. “Uh... Klaus, I’m gonna-” He swallows. “I’m gonna get inside you, okay?”

“And _I’m_ the big mouth.” the other man chuckles blissfully. Klaus rolls his eyes, focuses on the view under him and smiles. “Fine. You ready?” he asks with a rougher voice; both of their throats are husky enough to leave them breathless. They enjoy the view from the other man. Dave keeps his hands on his thighs and Klaus his hands over his shoulders, digging his nails a little bit. “Good. _Perfect_.”

Klaus takes a deep breath before lifting his hips to align. They shudder when the tip presses the hole, both panting at the sensitivity of their bodies. It’s even hotter when Dave’s length starts going through him deliciously; touching his inside with each curve of his member, making him wet and damp to the max, and Klaus gasps when the bottom of the length reaches his cheeks. He has to breathe deeply some seconds before tightening his eyelids, opening his eyes and chuckling out of bliss. Not much later, he’s moving.

They’re not totally wild at the beginning. They start by going at a slow pace, feeling each other, melting in their movements, one waist running into the other one once and again, once and again. First, they focus on the way Dave’s member is stretching superbly inside, invading the other man’s humid inner curves, fitting together like puzzle pieces. With those kinds of thoughts in mind, it’s easy to become too needy and too aroused.

They move faster; Dave squeezes his thighs harder and he melts in libido when the man over him tightens his legs for hardening his length more on purpose; the skin of his member and the skin of his ass rubbing each other makes them overexcited physically, sweat being all over. Klaus, enjoying the length invading him, is digging his nails on Dave’s shoulder more; enough to keep him aroused but not to hurt the man below him. 

A couple of minutes later, the man above is jumping like a bunny over his waist. They try not to lose total control over their bodies, but it’s hard when they’re both starting to feel a soft tingle over their lower stomachs, each time stronger. That sense expands lower and it sneaks in their ultra-sensitive zones, lingering there, never disappearing, asking for release. Normal couples would stop the thrusts for a rest, but they decide to move on.

“D-Dave, I’m go-...” Klaus gulps deep and tightens his eyelids, trying to endure and dragging this as long as possible. “Crap, I’m gonna come...”

And just like that, in the middle of the heat of the moment, their eyes somehow connect. Dave has the urge to pull the other guy down so that their torsos are pressed against one another, both torsos rubbing Klaus’ member together and, right after that, he moves one of his hands to cup Klaus’ throat to choke him so that his climax is even more intense. And it is. Seconds later, the head of the other man’s length reaches his _sweet spot_ , making him die and come back to life several times in the comedown; Klaus presses his teeth together, growls and devotes himself to the bursts he feels from his entire member to his belly, coming entirely between their two stomachs. It’s deliciously dirty, especially looking down at all of the mess between their bodies when Klaus gasps once he’s finished and moves out of the man, sitting his hips closer to Dave’s legs.

His arms lose strength, so he rests his forehead on Dave’s shoulder while trying to have a normal respiration again, several seconds breathing in and out.

“Good?” his stupid husband asks, making him giggle histerically and look at him like _smiling with his eyes_.

“Yeah.” he responds with a rough voice, even rougher than a truck driver’s. “Shit, yeah, I’m more than good, I’m _goooood_.” He taps his shoulders marked with his painted nails and smiles once he’s totally recovered. “Well. Let’s make you finished.”

“You know you don’t _have to_ make me finish, don’t you?”

“I know!” Klaus rolls his eyes. “But I want to! Besides, I’m not leaving your willy all _needy_ and _desperate_.” Dave thinks about it. More like, he pretends to think about it. He doesn’t need almost anything for Klaus to leave him worked up, even by blinking really slow. “All alone, worked up, swelled and covered by fluid, shiny, _thick_. Begging to thrust my ass or begging to be sucked by my needy tongue.”

Dave doesn’t need more. He reaches the back of his neck and pulls him into another kiss. Klaus chuckles into the kiss, victorious. A couple of minutes later, Klaus’ body is totally recovered, so he takes a deep breath, positions himself and sits on Dave’s member again, gasping at the contact.

They begin to dance frantically once more. Now, Dave is the one who takes the lead in their movements, so he begins to thrust deeper once he feels he’s on edge again. He grinds his teeth when he feels the familiar tingle on his lower parts. Now that seconds go faster, he feels it more intense, digging and stimulating the muscles of his length, whose skin is constantly rubbing Klaus by inside while they kiss. It doesn’t take too much longer. He pants when a shot of energy spreads right from his balls to the tip of his member, coming inside of the man over him, leaving themselves dirtier and sweatier.

He growls briefly when his toes curl in pleasure and his breath goes back to normal. It takes him some seconds to recover because his limbs are numb and his mind his spinning around in the good sense. Klaus moves his hips away and presses their torsos together once more. They hug and kiss briefly.

“Better?” Klaus says softly, to which the other man nods in amusement. They kiss again, now slower. After a while of melting each other’s arms, they split just a little bit. “Great! Just...” He gulps. They have to talk about this, sooner or later. “Just, like you said earlier, we have a family. The cat, the future kid and all that jazz.” he tries to say all of this carefully. It’s a delicate matter. “I’m just saying that we’re growing up. As a marriage, as individual people too.”

“I know.”

“So...” Klaus gulps once more. “We’re growing old too. We’re not even forty, but we’re not teenagers either.” That’s something he learned from Trinity, one of the many speeches he used to tell them. “Next time, let’s take these things upstairs, okay?”

Dave smiles. He’s so proud of how far they’ve come, both individually and together. He strokes a curl in his hair.

“Okay.”

They kiss again before moving away, cleaning the mess on the sofa and having dinner. Later, they have a shower and enjoy silence on the bed with the lamps from the two nightstands being the only thing that shine. 

They’re cuddling close, caressing one another lovingly since they got bored of their phones half an hour ago. They’re simply enjoying each other and thinking about themselves too.

“Klaus.” Dave whispers into the dark bedroom, perfectly noticing the silhouette of his husband. Klaus just hums to his voice. “Are you worried? About growing old together and all?”

Klaus chuckles, without knowing what to say at the beginning.

“I was.” he confesses. “But... not anymore, you know?”

“Why?”

It’s a corny answer. It’s going to definitely be a corny answer.

“Because I have you.” Klaus mutters. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that... if I have you, I don’t need anything else. Everything is and will be about you. It always has been.”

“Why?” Dave asks, despite knowing the why.

“'Cause...” He has to think some seconds to put his fast thoughts in order. “Because of our story. The war, your death, my conjuring, the _John_ thing, Trinity bringing you back...” Wow. It’s a long story indeed. “We’ve come so far, which... is scary and good at the same time.”

Dave keeps silent for a while.

“Despite everything... I like it. Our story.” he responds with honesty. Klaus looks at his eyes despite being in a dark environment. “It’s been more than rough. Awful sometimes, not wanting to ever repeat something similar. I don’t even wish something similar to my worst enemy. But our story has made us the ones we are now.”

Klaus knows something else he has learned by being with Dave and it’s _acceptance_. Acceptance of his powers because having powers doesn’t change, something that won’t ever go away. Acceptance of his death. Acceptance of life being a slut. Acceptance of his state. Acceptance of the fact that sometimes families split and still keep in contact. Acceptance of growing old. And, especially, acceptance of their story. Which is scary, giddy, terrifying and satisfactory at the same time, making him realize the telepathic Daniel was totally right in them being soulmates. Dave has made him accept things as they are, be grounded, to move on as long as he thinks about himself, to truly love himself too.

Which is the most precious thing Dave could have ever given to him, even a little bit more than when they began to fall in love, to fight together in a war they didn’t want to fight, to keep memories like the one they have as the central picture of their _wall of memories_.

Klaus smiles, not caring about his teary eyes. Some things never change.

“I know.” Klaus whispers with a stutter. “I like our story too.” Dave kisses his fingers. “I can’t wait to be an old man, feed bread to birds and get aroused by your dentures and your wrinkles.”

Some things will never change, like Klaus joking in the middle of a serious conversation. And Dave hasn’t, doesn’t and won’t ever care about it.

By now, being thirty-five years old, back in Pennsylvania he thought he’d be married to the perfect woman with an incoming baby on the way, in the seventies. His parents would be happy. His cousins would still talk to him. Everything would be perfect. 

But he never wanted those things and he realized about it when it was dark in his tent and a man covered in blood and a towel appeared out of nowhere and turned his world upside down, and he absolutely has loved, loves and will love him for it.

Yeah. It’s a scary, giddy, wild feeling, but it’s okay because thanks to being in each other’s lives, they have found themselves by loving one another.

“Hmm...” Klaus complains a bit softly, stroking his temples. Dave knows that gesture. “My head’s starting to bother me... I might have a bad dream if I fall asleep.”

Dave wraps his body with his strong arms and kisses his crown.

“You know it. I’m here.”

“Despite my dreams thing?” Klaus chuckles.

Dave nods, more secure than ever.

“Whatever happens.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Clara Graham": Elizabeth Olsen]  
> ["the woman that gives them cookies": Ashley Benson]  
> ["Daniel from New York": Shemar Moore]  
> ["Misses Pemberton": Jane Carr]  
> ["adult-looking Five Hargreeves": Grant Austin]  
> ["rude man from the adoption agency": Tom Hanks]  
> ["Oliver Taylor": Sean Bean]  
> ~~~  
> So, that was a thing!  
> Cliché, yeah, but I didn't expect to ever write a fanfic like this. I always put my max effort in my real books, not in fanfics, but I'm happy how this turned out  
> Yes, there are a few questions left unsolved, but that's on purpose for leaving readers thinking and reflect on them ;)  
> THESE ARE THEIR ENGAGEMENT/MARRIAGE RINGS:  
> [https://bnsec.bluenile.com/bluenile/is/image/bluenile/-sapphire-diamond-18k-white-gold-engagement-ring-/setting_template_main?$phab_catprod$&$diam_shape=is{bluenile/main_RD_standard_100}&$diam_position=-20,0&$ring_position=0,0&$ring_sku=is{bluenile/20327_setmain}]  
> THIS IS KLAUS’ ELEGANT CROP IN THEIR WEDDING:  
> [https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1521/7664/products/product-image-109003583.jpg?v=1571609053]  
> I'm sure you've heard about the game "Among Us", and I edited the crewmates of this game into some TUA characters (figure out who is who!):  
> [https://ibb.co/L0vLcNV]  
> This is the story and the love this ship deserves. I hope you liked this as much as I enjoyed writing it  
> I'll still write about Klave in my profile in case you're curious  
> Peace out! :D


End file.
